


So I take off my face (cause it reminds me how it all went wrong)

by ithoughtslashmeanthorror



Series: See how deep the bullet lies [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Gotham (TV)
Genre: Batfamily Feels, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Gen, Heavy Angst, Jason Todd Has Issues, Knightfall protocol, Nightmares, No Batman, at least not yet, batfamily, post-arkham knight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-15 01:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13602441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithoughtslashmeanthorror/pseuds/ithoughtslashmeanthorror
Summary: While Jason is plagued by nightmares, Bruce tries desperately to find out what happened to him.





	1. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so grumpy right now.
> 
> Had a crap day at work, my account got overdrawn my $800 because my telco made a mistake and sent me an extra internet box and when I told them they said they'd send me a return bag. 3 months later, they haven't sent me the bag and they fined me for 'not returning' the box.
> 
> Assholes.
> 
> Now I'm broke until payday, which is unfortunately once a month and it's my birthday next weekend and I can't actually afford to celebrate it... Though my work will buy me a cake on the day, which is kind of cool.
> 
> So I logged into ao3 tonight to cheer myself up and saw all my reviews and I have to shout out to all of you for filling up my inbox. You've all made my day better.
> 
> For this, I'm uploading this chapter 3 days early.
> 
> This marks the first time I'm uploading a chapter without having finished the next story... sooo, we'll see what happens after this.

For the fourth night in a row, screaming woke Bruce up. He leapt out of bed, running down the hall and into Jason’s room. For the fourth night in a row, Bruce opened the door and looked down at Jason, twisting in his sheets with one hand fisting the covers. “Don’t… can’t… stop…” His voice was barely a whisper and then – “No!” The word ripped from his throat, and he thrashed but didn’t wake.

Bruce went to his side, one hand grabbing and shaking Jason’s shoulder. “Wake up,” he said. “Jason, wake up.” He shook him harder, and Jason’s eyes flew open. He tried to push Bruce back, but Bruce saw it coming and managed to grab both his wrists. “Jay, look at me. _Look at me_.” Wild blue eyes locked on with his own and he collapsed against Bruce’s chest, harsh sobs wracking his body.

Bruce sighed, relaxing again, just as he had the night before and the night before that. “It’s gonna be okay,” Bruce murmured as Jason shook. “You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you here.”

Eventually, Bruce managed to move back against the headboard and dragged Jason until he was lying with his cheek on Bruce’s stomach and his fingers locked into his t-shirt. If the pattern repeated itself, Jason’s sobs would turn to whimpers and whimpers to mumbles until he fell back asleep. If the pattern held, in the morning he would wake up with only the slightest recollection of any of it. With a red-tinged face, he’d murmur a quick apology and go hide in the bathroom until Bruce left the room. Then they would walk along the beach in silence – they had tried running, and Jason’s hip had pained him, though he couldn’t remember where the injury was from.

Bruce ran his fingers through Jason’s hair as he shuddered in his dreams. He wasn’t sure what had brought on the intensity nightmares. Jason had been sleeping, not peacefully, but more quietly, before they’d withdrawn blood from him. He groaned in his sleep, another nightmare taking hold of him and Bruce leant down closer to his ear. “It’s okay, Jay. No one can hurt you.” Jason quietened in his dream, and his breathing hitched, before becoming even once again.

It couldn’t keep going.

Already, Jason had lavender bruises beneath his eyes. He wasn’t resting. During the day, he had stopped eating. Not altogether. But he was cutting his food into tiny pieces and eating the bare minimum. On top of it, he had been smoking like his life depended on it, despite their talk. Bruce was beginning to worry it might.

There was nothing Bruce wouldn’t do to take away his pain. If he could go back in time and take his place, he would do that too. All he could do though was stay with him until he woke up.

It happened when dawns light broke through the windows. Jason’s brow furrowed and his fingers gripped Bruce’s t-shirt even more. Bruce tightened his arm around him, trying to keep him warm – he was always on the edge of shivering. His nose buried further into Bruce’s stomach and he frowned realising it wasn’t his pillow, before opening his eyes. When he turned over and looked up at Bruce, the blush bloomed over his face. “Again?”

“Yeah.” Bruce didn’t move. He didn’t want to make Jason feel like he had to move, so he stilled himself.

“Sorry.” Jason rubbed his face blearily. “Didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t apologise.” There was an awkward silence as Jason pressed his palms into his eyes. “Headache?” Bruce asked.

Jason nodded. “Yeah. M’tired. Can’t walk now.”

“You can go back to sleep. I’ll stay if you want me to.” Bruce left it open. Maybe it was his exhaustion, or maybe it was his headache. But Jason turned and pressed his face back into Bruce’s stomach, nodding again.

“Light hurts,” he mumbled. Bruce looked back at the window, and he could just reach the blind string, and the room fell into darkness. He shut them then curled back around Jason. The J was showing, glaring at Bruce. _He called me his plan J_ , Jason had said.

“B. Hand.”

“What?” Bruce asked. Jason reached out blindly and grabbed Bruce’s hand. He put it back in his hair and Bruce smiled the slightest bit. “Sorry.” It was the small strange moments like that, where Jason would reach out for something that Bruce remembered that, underneath all that hurt and anger, Jason was still there. That even though Joker thought he branded him as his own, he was still the kid who wanted Bruce, Alfred, and Dick to be his family. He just had to figure out how to get that kid to come out.

* * *

Jason woke up later than normal because of a pounding headache that started from of a lack of sleep. It was rounding his fourth night with nightmares. The fourth morning of waking up tucked underneath Bruce’s arm. It was strange. In those twilight moments, blanketed by Bruce’s warmth, he didn’t remember the bad things. He could even recall the prouder looks Bruce would give him. The times when he would smile like Jason was good enough. It was as if the warmth Bruce’s body radiated connected Jason to his good memories.

He had woken up under Bruce’s arm earlier, and embarrassingly, he’d stayed there. But the second-time Jason woke up, Bruce was gone. In his place were pillows, stacked precariously around Jason’s face, and a note on his bedside.

He reached over and unfurled it.

_I’m on the beach – B_

He felt stupid. He couldn’t remember the nightmares Bruce told him he was having, and if it wasn’t for the puffy eyes and hoarse voice, Jason might have tried to convince himself his former mentor was lying. _You can’t even trust your recent memories anymore,_ he thought bitterly. He got up stiffly and went to the bathroom, quickly brushing his teeth. When he looked up in the mirror, he saw his facial scruff had officially upgraded to a beard.

He scratched it lightly. He didn’t like it. It didn’t suit his face, and it annoyed him. At the same time, he didn’t have the energy to shave it off. The light caught in the mirror and hit his eye. Squinting, Jason noted with some disdain, the J was still visible on his cheek. He remembered the first time he’d seen it in the mirror.

He had just been left alone in a motel room by Deathstroke after he broke out of Arkham. He hadn’t seen a toilet in two years, let alone a bathroom. Let alone himself.

He leant forward on the sink, fingers digging into the porcelain and stared into the mirror. The J on his face was horrifying. He wanted to rip it off. He tried to rip it off.

Or at least, cut it off. With a razor.

He held the razor above his skin, poised like he was just shaving, hands shaking as he considered bringing it down and swiping the mark off. “You’re gonna look like Two-Face if you try that.” Slade’s lazy drawl came from the doorway. “Or worse, that Cowboy who jumps through time.”

Jason’s hand trembled, but he didn’t put down the blade. “Probably Two-Face though. Same side.” Slade was smirking like an idiot, daring Jason to do it.

He dropped the razor with a rattle and pulled back from the mirror. Looking back, Jason had to wonder if that was The Joker’s doing. If he had told Slade to make sure Jason didn’t mar his brand. He felt the same sickness he had that first day and his fingers itched for the blade.

But Bruce would probably freak out.

It didn’t matter anyway. No one was going to look at Jason. Not anymore.

There was a time where he had painstakingly fixed his hair and groomed his features for every event at Wayne Enterprises. He would wind Dick with blows to the stomach every time he ruffled his hair out of place or did something that scuffed his shoes or crinkled his shirt. But those days were gone. Jason stopped caring about what he looked like. Hell, if fifteen-year-old Jason Todd could see the matted mess of locks on his hair now, he would freak out.

Then again, a lot of what Jason did would freak that kid out.

He decided to run a shower. He didn’t think he’d had one in a few days. He went underneath the spray and only let the water hit the back of his head. Never his face. Jason had a thing about water touching his face.

The water was never as hot as he wanted it to be. He figured though, he could inject boiling water into his veins, and it still wouldn’t be hot enough. He had never been so cold before. His chills had come and gone over the years after he escaped, but it had never been three weeks of ice in his bones.

He didn’t want to analyse it. Not while there was so much else, he needed to analyse. His core temperature took a backseat until he got a handle on the nightmares.

After getting dressed in something not appropriate for the heat outside, he went down to the beach where true to his word, Bruce was practising his fighting stances in the stand. It was meditative for him. For Jason, stance training it had always been about the attack.

He noticed two sets of towels on the sand and some swimming trunks. “So I was right in assuming the letter was a command and not just an FYI.” Jason smirked, wrapping his arms around himself.

Bruce didn’t answer right away, finishing his final pose before standing ramrod straight. He regarded Jason, glancing at his appearance. He had a feeling he was looking more homeless than ‘Son of Bruce Wayne’. Hell, he figured he probably looked like his Dad after a bender. “I was thinking, instead of running, maybe we could swim. It puts less pressure on your hip and–”

“No.” Jason shut him down so quickly that Bruce flinched. “I’d rather not.”

“Want to explain?” Bruce asked.

Jason scoffed and felt self-conscious. Even though it was only Bruce, he felt like he had a million eyes on him. “Really? You want me to explain to you why I’d rather not be eaten by sharks.”

Bruce raised his eyebrow and, yeah. Jason was the kid who ran after Killer Croc before he even knew what crime he’d committed. But he was a surprisingly more cautious adult. _Scared. You’re a more scared adult._ “Well, if you change your mind…”

“I know where the ocean is.” Jason turned and started walking off but stopped. Something was nagging at him. Something that made him tighten his fist and warm his chest at the same time. He turned halfway back. “You don’t have to stay with me. Or wake me up. I usually come out of it on my own.”

“I don’t mind.” Bruce wore the most frustratingly impassive expression, and it made Jason want to rage over absolutely nothing. It made him want to grab a rock and bludgeon Bruce. He could see it. See the blood pour from his head.

Wanted it. Wanted to see him dead. The man who left him in Arkham and abandoned him and–

He cut off that thought quickly and pressed his palms into his eyes, rubbing vigorously, to scrub the image of Bruce away.

“Whatever,” he sighed and went back up to the house, not stopping until he reached his bed. He wasn’t sure why he’d gotten out of bed. There was no reason to. Jason had nothing to do. Was nothing. Which was funny because it was exactly what his father had always told him he was.

Nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm torturing Jason for a little bit longer... but it's going to get better.
> 
> It's also midnight. I will reply to your reviews tomorrow.
> 
> Thank you so much for them.


	2. Telephone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... I WILL GET BACK TO YOUR REVIEWS!
> 
> I'm just swamped at the moment.

As the nightmares got worse, Jason grew more withdrawn, barely leaving his room. Bruce, in conjunction with figuring out a way to wedge his way back into Gotham, was failing him. Again.

On the eighth consecutive night, Bruce had fallen asleep on the headboard. When he’d woken up, Jason was gone. He didn’t panic. Jason’s cigarettes were missing from the nightstand. He had started growling when Bruce offered him nicotine patches but conceded to smoking outside. He told him every day he'd quit tomorrow.

Bruce went downstairs and found him sitting on the steps outside the kitchen, smoke twirling to the sky from his lips and a blanket hanging to the ground over his shoulders.

At the very least, the skies had turned grey that day, and there was a wind with the crackling promise of a storm, so Bruce wasn’t worried about him getting heat stroke for a change. He slipped beside Jason and watched his trembling hands. “I can’t keep doing this,” Jason murmured. He only ever spoke in the quiet. Early mornings. Late nights. The times when he was most vulnerable. Bruce missed his usual sarcastic remarks around the house during the day, but it was like the words were harder when the sun was high in the sky. “I can’t keep reinventing myself.”

“Is that what the dreams are? You’re scared of starting again?” Bruce asked.

Jason narrowed his eyes, shaking his head. “Memories. I… It wasn’t that I forgot what he’d done… It’s just that I’d pushed it down. Minimised it. It wasn’t The Joker’s fault so much as it was yours. That kind of stuff. When I realised I was missing memories of you, and that others were tainted, I started to force myself to remember the torture because… because that reminds me of the other stuff.”

“You can’t force it, Jason. It’ll come back to you in time.”

Jason swallowed and rubbed at his knuckles. “Want to know why I can’t swim?” he asked. Bruce nodded, and Jason let out a long sigh. “Harley. She um… After Joker I spent a few months with Harley. Near the end. She um…” He looked like he was struggling. “I don’t like water on my face.” He confessed and took a deep gasp like he’d run a marathon.

Bruce had been told plenty of times as a child, that he had PTSD. But what he experienced as a child, compared to what he saw Jason struggling with, was nothing. “Waterboarding?” Bruce asked quietly.

Jason let out a long sigh of relief, thankful he hadn’t had to say it. He nodded and pressed his forehead to his knees. His cheeks were pale as the white sand on the beach, and he was shaking. “I couldn’t… I was tied down and…” The more he tried to speak, the quicker his breathing became.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Bruce gently moved his hand up to the back of his neck and squeezed.

“How can you say that? _I_ left. _I_ turned off my tracker. _I_ went after The Joker alone. _I_ was captured, and _I_ let her do those things to me!” Jason’s knuckles were white, fingers tight in his hair. “I let this happen,” he hissed.

“You didn’t let anything happen,” Bruce assured him. “You were trapped.”

“I shouldn’t have been,” he hissed. His cheeks flushed, and fire raged in his eyes.

“No,” Bruce agreed, trying to keep him calm. “You shouldn’t have been there. Not because you fell for their trap or because you think you failed. But because none of that should have happened. Not to you. Not to anyone.” The fire died out. Jason wilted, and Bruce caught him with one hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Son?”

But Jason roughly pushed Bruce’s hand away and went up to his room.

* * *

The phone rang twice before Selina picked up. It was midnight (two in the morning in Gotham), and Jason hadn’t woken up yet. Bruce didn’t think it was a maybe if he woke up, but only a when. “You know, for a dead man, you’re awful chatty. And still horrible with updates. You haven’t called, B.”

“He’s here. He’s safe.” Bruce was sat on the couch, feet up and found himself staring at the empty shelves of the bookcase. Earlier in the evening, Jason had gone upstairs to read. Bruce had watched him collect books from downstairs in languages he hadn’t known Jason knew.

“But he’s not okay.” Selina let out a long sigh. “Are you in trouble with your almost-killer sleeping down the hall?”

Bruce wasn’t sure. While Jason had mentioned how much he hated Bruce a lot, his actions proved otherwise. He was scared. “Jason is fine living here. He doesn’t need to be anywhere else.” He rubbed his face and leant back. “Selina... Are you still friends with Harley?” Bruce asked.

She hummed. “You know Bruce, I don’t like to get in the middle of your tiffs with her.”

“I know. I still need you to. For Jason.”

“Playing on my heartstrings, I see.”

Bruce wasn’t trying to. It was a just a fact. Even if Selina hadn’t known about Jason or him being alive, he still would have called her. “Joker tortured him. He had other people torture him. I know he filmed parts of it because he sent it to me. But he did other things. The only person who knows for sure is Harley.”

Selina went quiet, and Bruce didn’t know what else to say. “Do you really want to know?” she asked.

“I need to know what I’m dealing with. He can’t sleep or get out of bed. He barely eats. Without revenge fuelling him, everything is catching up with him, and he’s unravelling faster than I can pick up the pieces. I can’t hold him long enough to keep him together because he won’t let me.”

“Do you need back up?” And even though she was offering him help, he was glad for the way she phrased it. Because if he thought of Jason’s healing as a mission, he could plan it. But first, he needed information, and the empty bookshelves just reminded him of how much he was missing.

“No. I can handle him.” Bruce turned his gaze up to the ceiling. There was a swirling design of flowers and leaves engraved there. Talia had spared no expense. “If I know, then I can plan. If I plan, I get things done.”

“Still just a little kid with a whiteboard,” Selina chuckled. There was a long silence over the phone then – “I’ve been thinking about this. When I did my brief stint in the Asylum – a working vacation, you might say – I heard a rumour about a punching bag. A narc of some sort that the other inmates got to take turns on. I never saw the guy, but Joker and Harley were both in around the same time, and Jason _was_ missing. Maybe...” Bruce’s stomach tightened and clenched in the way that made him want to find some of those inmates and make them his punching bag.

“Please, Selina. Joker filmed a lot of things. Ask her if she still has any of it.”

“For Jason.” Selina sounded annoyed, but he wasn’t sure if it was with him or herself. Or maybe it was Harley. “Is he doing better at least?”

Bruce closed his eyes. He didn’t open up too many people. Alfred mostly. Jim, a bit less in recent years. Lucius, when the moment struck. Dick, Barbara, Diana, and Clarke, only when they badgered. Tim. Never. But there were things he could only tell Selina. “He’s standing right in front of me, but he’s never been so far away.” Bruce’s heart clenched. “I hated Willis and Catherine for what they put him through. But I did this to him.”

“Stop.”

“I ruined his life.”

“You saved him. I remember him in Crime Alley, running for Falcone. Stealing to eat. You gave him a home. A family.”

“I gave him a death sentence.”

“That kid was never good at taking care of himself. No one ever taught him how. You were– _are_ the only person who has ever taken care of him. Don’t put yourself down, B.”

Bruce couldn’t agree with her. Everything that had happened to Jason was because of Bruce. Because he dragged him into the world of masked vigilantes. He could have just given him a scholarship and sent him to a boarding school. Instead, he brought him in. “If you could go back and do it all again, other than not letting Jason get kidnapped, would you really do it differently?”

And he thought of all the highs. Taking Jason to see the Gotham Knights versus the Keystone Patriots. Jason and Dick ganging up on him in training. When all Jason asked Bruce for, for his birthday was a book and his face lighting up when Bruce gave him a library. “If I could save Jason, then no, I wouldn’t. I’d keep him.”

“And Tim?”

Bruce sighed. Truth be told, if Jason had never gone missing, Bruce would never have found Tim. Tim only came to him because Jason was gone. Technically, he hadn’t so much _gone_ to Bruce as _saved_ him. But that was a different story. “I took in all three of them. I don’t regret that. I don’t regret them. I regret putting them in danger.”

“Well, I don’t think they regret it. I think they’re falling apart without you, B.”

“What’s going on?” Bruce had been reading reports, but while Dick had gone back to Blüdhaven, Conner and Kara had joined Tim in Gotham to help him keep the crime rates down at record lows. But that was how Nightwing and Robin were doing, not Dick and Tim.

“I went over to see Barbara the other night. Tim’s staying with her. He’s not talking. Just moving and planning the wedding. It’s in March if you were wondering. That’s in a little over three months’ time. You know. After Christmas and New Year. Valentine’s Day too, if you’re feeling the romantic bug.”

Bruce knew Selina was trying to make him feel guilty about the upcoming holiday season. He had thought about it. Profusely. Replaying over and over Tim and Dick’s first holiday’s with him after they had lost their families. Replaying his own after he’d lost his. But all of that just made him think of Jason’s first Christmas and how excited he’d been at all the presents and food. How he’d sat up on his knees at the table just so he could lean closer and see it all.

Of course, he had read in the tabloids. Read outrageous details from the wedding of Gotham socialite’s son and the daughter of the possible future-Mayor. It was planned for the next year with the Gotham orchestra playing the bridal march. And the same caterer who did the royal wedding would be making hors d’oeuvres.

The rumours were probably better than the real thing if Bruce were honest. They made it all seem less real. More like gossip born of a missed-time photograph, which a particular son of his most likely appreciated.

“Have you seen Dick?”

“No one has. Not really. He’s ignoring Tim, Barbara, and Lucius from what I heard.”

“Can you do me one more favour?” Bruce asked quietly.

Selina just sighed. “I’ll go talk to him. But Bruce. You can’t keep hiding from them.”

“When the media stops following them to work and college to ask if they had any idea if I was Batman, I will. But until then, it could put their lives in danger. I can’t do that again.”

“You know, you’re just protecting yourself. Forget about you, don’t you think that Dick would want to know his brother is alive?”

That was easy. There was a part of him that didn’t know how Jason would react to seeing Dick again. There was fondness there sometimes, and he didn’t forget Jason defending Dick. But he knew how Dick would respond. If he saw Dick saw Jason, the way he was, the guilt would eat him alive. Dick hadn’t travelled off-world since that day and had painstakingly inserted himself between every one of Tim and Bruce’s fights to make sure Tim never ran away.

It broke his relationship with Barbara apart, inch by inch, leaving them almost irreparable after The Joker shot her. He wanted Jason to be more stable for his sake and for Dick’s when the elder one found out. Also because, while Jason remembered Dick fondly, Bruce remembered all the time's things were volatile between them. They could both fight just as much loved, and he wasn’t sure what Jason could do now.

“He’s not ready,” he said, not specifying which of the boys he was talking about. “I will go to them, Selina. When the time is right.”

“ _Fine_. Just don’t blame me when they don’t forgive you.”

“I’ll make a note of that.”

They spoke about other things. Ivy – Selina missed her and Bruce had to admit, he did too – Riddler, – Selina was itching for him to break out so she could lock him back up, even though she claimed to have taken her revenge – and Alfred and Jim – “They _checked up_ on me.” “They care about you.” “Since when?”

When they were finished, and she had to go – “I’m on a rooftop, with a bag of money over my shoulder.” “I don’t want to know.” “It’s nothing that belongs to _you_ … I don’t think. Did you ever own–” “Honestly, Selina. I don’t want to know.” – Bruce went upstairs. He went straight to Jason’s bedroom, opening the door quietly.

He had fallen asleep on his side, curled around a book. Bruce went in quietly, painstakingly trying not to disturb the little bit of restful sleep he got and slid the book out from under his hand. When he marked the page with the ribbon, he remembered how many times he would wake up to his books set aside and a blanket thrown over his shoulders in his life, and he had a pang of yearning for Alfred. He would know what to do to help Jason. Or, at the very least, his presence would encourage Bruce to find the best way forward.

The fact was, he was confident he knew already what he was supposed to be doing. The one thing he had never been good at.

Talking.

There was so much Bruce wanted to say to Jason. It was still hard to believe he was even there some morning’s and Bruce woke up more than once wondering if it was just a dream. He thought he had watched him die. Thought that the bullet had ended him. _Just like Dick and Tim believe you are dead._

He closed his eyes. He thought he would have things sorted by that point, but he hadn’t known he was going to find Jason as he drove out of Gotham. He would have planned to find him after it had all calmed down. Probably with Dick. If he called his eldest, he would be in Mexico the next morning. He would be angry though. Angry enough to not talk with Bruce for a long while.

Jason groaned, and his head twisted to the side. Bruce took Jason’s hand and squeezed it. He whimpered and pulled Bruce’s arm into his own as if it were a comfort toy, but his furrowed brow relaxed. His breathing evened out again.

_One thing at a time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!


	3. The Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not Dick or Tim but it's a start...

An alarm went off in the house late in the afternoon. Jason and Bruce both stuck their heads out of their respective rooms and looked at each other. “What’s that?” Jason asked, voice hoarse and cracking.

“I moved in here two weeks before you did,” Bruce said in lieu of an actual answer. He went back into his room and, from the closet, took out batarangs that were with his suit. Back in the hall, Jason had come out with a gun in his hand. “Put that away,” Bruce muttered. He hated guns. Hated seeing Jason holding one so casually.

“Let’s just go make sure we’re not dying.” Jason waved his hand for Bruce to lead the way and, with a sigh, he did. Bruce went down, and Jason’s footsteps were right there, mimicking his own. A wave of déjà vu hit him, but he quickly shook it off and led the way downstairs. The sound was coming from the intercom, a yellow light flashing brightly on the side of it.

It wasn’t the buzzer. He knew that sound. There was a camera on the intercom, and he turned it on.

The front gate was wide open.

“Who knows we’re here?” Jason asked over his shoulder.

Bruce hadn’t told anyone where he was, but there were a lot of people who knew he was alive who knew how to track him. “Stay in the house.” Even though Bruce gave the order, Jason followed him out the door. He’d forgotten about Jason’s difficulty (outright refusal) to follow orders sometimes.

A limousine twisted around the bend, up the hill. Again, Bruce tried to get rid of Jason. “Go inside.”

“I’m not a kid,” Jason growled through his grinding teeth.

Bruce slid one batarang into his back pocket and the rest into his front. “If it’s someone from the Justice League, I don’t want to explain you right now.”

“That’s not exactly Uncle Clark or Aunt Diana’s normal mode of transportation... Unless it’s Oliver. But I still think he’d helicopter in.” Jason made no move to go inside or hide. Bruce could see his body still on high alert, even though he’d slipped his gun into his waistband. There was no convincing him to go back in so all Bruce could do is prepare.

The limo stopped in front of the door, and Bruce went out ahead of Jason just as the driver got out to open the back door. The long leg of a woman came out, cloaked in a sheer black dress, blowing in the wind. Her hair was hidden behind a wide-brimmed sun hat, and she slid her Chanel glasses - no doubt stolen - over her nose. “Selina,” Bruce sighed.

“B,“ she winked and turned to the driver. “Just take the bags out of the car, por favor. My husband and son can take them inside.”

“Husband?” Bruce raised his eyebrow.

“Mommy Dearest,” Jason scoffed from behind him.

Bruce glanced back at Jason to see how he was reacting. But he had a giant grin spread out over his face. He should have expected that. Jason had always liked Selina. He descended the stairs and Selina opened her arms for him. He hugged her tight, rocking from side to side, laughing softly over her shoulder.

Bruce was taken aback for a moment as Selina hugged Jason back then pulled away from him to grab his face. “Here, let me look at you.” He shied away, tilting his head aside to hide Joker’s brand but Selina ignored it. “As handsome as ever. But that beard has to go. It makes you look like a lumberjack. Bruce! The bags!” Selina shouted as a sizeable amount of luggage began to pile up on the side of the steps. Bruce rolled his eyes and went and collected the bags as Selina slid her arm into Jason’s and pulled him into the house.

She paused next to Bruce, pressing a kiss to his cheek and slid something into his back pocket. He frowned, but when Jason and Selina were inside, and the driver was climbing into his car, he pulled out Jason’s gun and smiled at Selina’s light fingers.

He looked down at Selina’s bags and sighed. Too bad her luggage couldn’t be like her fingers.

* * *

“So, this is where you two have been hiding,” Selina bragged over a glass of wine. She’d insisted on a grand tour as she stepped inside and told Bruce that Jason had to take her. It was nice. A bit too nouveau riche meets Middle-Eastern palace library, for Selina’s liking, but _nice_.

Selina just hated that it was Talia’s if she was honest. She didn’t like thinking ill of the dead, but the fact Talia still had a hold on Bruce from the Other Side ate away at her. All the other girls (Silver, Vicki, Miranda, Diana, Andrea) were nothing compared to Talia al Ghul. She had a hold of him that Selina could never get between – not that Talia could ever lodge herself between Selina and Bruce either, much to Talia’s chagrin.

Bruce set her up in a room down the opposite side of the hall from Bruce’s. She showered off the airplane ride and changed into a pair of white cigarette pants and a spaghetti strap tank, ready for dinner.

She went into the kitchen where Jason was preparing a meal, and that was when Bruce poured her the wine. “I needed to be somewhere no one knows me,” Bruce said. He was next to her at the kitchen bench as Jason shuffled between pots and pans. “It’s just a place, Selina.”

And damn him if he didn’t know she was jealous of Talia. But she ignored that and looked at Jason. “And what about you, Boy Wonder? How do you feel about Bruce bringing you here and working you to the bone?” She nodded to the various pots and pans, and Jason glanced up, eyebrow raised. She tried not to flinch every time his eyes met hers.

When she had first met Jason – a cocky eleven-year-old with a horrible past – she had taken a liking to the mischievous glint in his eye. It was still there, but instead of it belonging to a school-boy who liked to play pranks on his older brother, it was dulled by scrutiny and a darkness she only ever saw in Blackgate. “It’s nice. I like the books.”

Selina held back her shiver. “And Bruce trading Alf in for you is fine?”

A small smile danced on Jason’s lips, and he glanced at Bruce before looking back at Selina, still chopping vegetables. “This is the first time I’m cooking. I just didn’t want you to be subjected to his usual gruel.” He looked back at the chopping block shyly, and Selina wanted to pull up his chin.

When he had hugged her and took her on a tour of the house earlier, she had wanted to ask Bruce what he was so worried about. He had seemed fine. Like a giddy child. But apparently, something had happened while she was in the shower because he was retreating in on himself and he was looking more and more exhausted as the seconds passed. “And what are you cooking for us?” she asked, trying to perk him up again.

Jason looked over at all the ingredients and back up at Selina. “Spaghetti Napolitana with bacon. It’s the only thing I know how to make properly for more than one person if I'm honest.”

“He walked in and said he’s cooking,” Bruce said, and a blush coloured Jason’s cheeks. He kept chopping the parsley with laser beam focus. “I just stepped aside.”

Selina observed Jason as he spun a spoon around a pot of boiling water. It was strange he was there. She could still remember his funeral, where Bruce had buried an empty casket. Jason had been missing for eight months at the point, and the Media had become antsy. At the same time, Joker had sent a video that Selina had only ever heard about through Alfred and Dick was desperately striking out, looking for closure.

It had seemed right, at the time. Selina had shown up along with half the Justice League who she recognised through their stature and walk, even though she had never been privy to most of their names. Diana and Talia were there too, standing in the pews. She knew them a little more intimately. “Your sister wives,” Ivy had teased and, from in front of them, Barbara Gordon had let out a small choked laugh.

It was a sombre affair. Bruce had sat through the whole ceremony but was unable to make a eulogy.

He wore the same bone weary expression on his face as he had, had that day now. Despair clung to him even as he made a brave face.

“I like cooking,” Jason said quietly, and Selina pulled her head out of her thoughts to look at him and smile. “I’m trying to find a recipe book in here, but it’s all mostly about history or fighting.”

“Such a homemaker, Talia was,” Selina said, a hint of her bitterness making it through. She saw Bruce give her a disappointed frown then raised her glass. “God rest her soul.”

He only rolled his eyes in reply. “Because you’re a regular Stepford Wife.”

“I’ll have you know I own a vacuum cleaner.”

“Not that you know what to do with it…”

“ _And_ I have a mop.”

“I’d hope so. You can’t just leave blood on hardwood.”

“I dust too. And do dishes.”

“Knowing how to stack a dishwasher doesn’t make you a home-ec graduate.”

“Says the man with the butler.”

“Alfred used to go and clean your apartment when you weren’t at home,” Jason said and smiled, unexpectedly drawing Bruce and Selina away from their bickering. Selina pulled back the slightest bit. “He probably still does. He said he liked the change of scenery. Plus, he thought it was funny that you didn’t know he had a key.”

Selina frowned and glared at Bruce. “You gave him my key?”

He smiled back smugly. “Where did you think the vacuum came from?”

“You know I don’t like the noise of it!”

Jason placed a large bowl of steaming pasta in between them. “Dinner’s ready.”

Argument temporarily put aside, Bruce and Selina helped take plates and cutlery into the formal dining room. The three sat – Bruce at the head and Jason and Selina either side – and ate the surprisingly delicious pasta. “This is really good, Jason.”

He blushed more under Selina’s scrutiny, pushing the sleeves over his jumper up to his elbow. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

Selina looked at Bruce, wondering if she had said something wrong and he gave her a tiny shake of his head. Neither Bruce nor Jason were ever well known for their conversation starters though, so it was up to Selina to make dinner anything but awkward and silent. “So what’s the plan, Bruce? Why are you two here and not at home, with the rest of the Bat-Family?”

Bruce huffed. Apparently, that wasn’t the direction he was hoping for, and he glanced at Jason who had a steel grip on his cutlery. “Everyone in Gotham knows who I am,” Bruce said. “There are warrants out for my arrest, even though I’m technically dead.”

“So, you didn’t tell anyone, why? Because us thinking you’re dead is just great?”

“Alfred and Superman know–”

“Oh, _great_. So Alfred, who is also currently MIA and the alien from another planet get to know you’re alive but the rest of us–”

“I told you, didn’t I?”

“Only because you were worried about Jason!”

“Selina, I had no choice!”

“You always say that Bruce, but you’re the Master of Plans. This wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been exactly what you had wanted.”

“It wasn’t what I’d planned. Things changed.”

“What? What got so bad that you broke your family?”

“Me.” Selina and Bruce tore away from each other and looked at Jason who had been watching them as their voices grew louder. He wore a sullen expression, almost ill. His face had gone grey. “I… I was the Arkham Knight.” Selina mustn’t have looked surprised because Jason laughed darkly. “Of course, you knew that.”

“I told you, Jason,” Bruce said, gently.

“I thought you just meant that I was alive,” Jason murmured, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Selina asked.

Jason swallowed stiffly. “Riddler.”

Selina let her head tilt to the side, surveying the way Jason was poised, ready for attack. Bruce looked on edge too, as if he was waiting to jump between Selina and Jason. “You sent him to kidnap me?”

Jason shrugged then took a pause and nodded. “If it makes you feel better, I set Dick up for Penguin, Hush after Lucius, let Pyg massacre a lot of innocent people, Firefly out of prison, and let mercenaries beat up Barbara all so I could kill Bruce.” He forced a smile on his face, shrugging his shoulders. “So, it wasn’t personal.”

“Oh, so I was the distraction,” Selina said sarcastically. “You know he strapped a bomb collar on me.”

“Selina!” Bruce snapped.

But Jason pushed his food away from him and bent his head down into his hands. “I’m sorry.”

Selina glanced at Bruce who wore a pleading expression, and it hurt, just the slightest bit, that he didn’t think Selina could forgive Jason. The street-rat who she had been around when he first entered Bruce’s life. The closest thing she had ever had to a…

“Well, I can’t say I’m completely disappointed with the way things turned out. Gave me the perfect excuse to seek my revenge… I may have drained all of Eddie’s bank accounts. Who knew he was a millionaire?”

“That’s Bruce’s money,” Jason murmured, still watching his plate. “I paid him with money I stole from Wayne Enterprise.”

Selina glanced at Bruce and, as he didn’t look shocked by any of it, she shrugged. “Oh well. At least it’s in the family.”

Jason abruptly stood, hands bracing himself on the table to keep steady. “I’m going to bed. I’m sorry for… Thanks… Just…” He ran out of words so rather than try to find more, he left. Bruce watched him go with a tired weariness she usually only ever saw on Alfred’s face.

She reached her hand out and took Bruce’s over the table. She squeezed it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push him.”

“It’s fine. I never know what’s going to push him over the edge anyway.” Bruce withdrew his hand from under hers. “I’m going to check on him.”

“No, let me.” Selina stood and pushed Bruce back into his chair. “You need to eat. You’re tired too.”

“Selina,” Bruce began, but she cut him off.

“I won’t upset him. Promise.” She went to sweep by him when Bruce caught her by the wrist. He squeezed lightly and pulled her back.

“Did you talk to Harley?” he asked, studying her carefully.

“Let me talk to Jason.” She pulled her hand out of Bruce’s. “Then, I’ll talk to you about what I found out.” She pulled back and turned on her heel. She was going to fix the Wayne men. One way or another, Selina wasn’t giving up on them.

* * *

Jason didn’t even bother turning on the light as he got into his room and climbed into bed, flopping down like dead weight. When he first saw Selina, the same childhood happiness he’d felt from being around the Catwoman bubbled to the surface.

He’d missed her.

Missed the affectionate teasing and mother-like concern. Missed the way she was bad and good at the same time, but that Bruce still trusted her. Missed the way she was like him. From Crime Alley. That they shared the same streets, knew the same people. She was his people and Bruce’s people, and that had always made Selina special to him.

Sometimes, when he was infinitely childlike, he had liked to dream that Bruce and Selina were his real parents. That they always had been and it was all a tragic mistake that Jason had ended up being taken by the Todd’s.

That was why as the minutes with Selina wore on things got worse. Because he could see himself telling Riddler to take Selina. Could remember thinking it would hurt Bruce so much more to lose the other woman who held his heart. He had watched with anger as Bruce unlocked each and every riddle, _beat_ every damn challenge, getting more and more desperate as Bruce broke down the barriers Jason had painstakingly set up, without breaking a sweat. He was betting on someone to die. Barbara, Dick, Tim, Lucius, Selina… Anyone to distract Bruce with despair.

But they were people who had cared about Jason, and who had taken him in and given him love. How had he been so blinded by hatred that it had become okay to hurt them too?

He closed his eyes and felt as if he was on a boat in a storm. Nauseously, he tried squashing his face into the pillows to stop memories spinning. Good ones, not bad ones, hit him hard. But they just made the bad memories and the memories in which Jason _was bad_  even worse. “Stop,” he murmured into the pillows. “I get it. I fucked up.” He wanted to push it out of his head. He wanted to climb the walls.

The door brushed against the carpet as it opened and Jason tensed. A shaft of light from the hall lighting his face. “Jason?” It wasn’t Bruce.

Selina’s silhouette blocked the light for a moment before the door shut again. He didn’t hear her move. The only reason he could tell she was approaching was because of years of training to detect what his eyes couldn’t see. Her feet were silent, but Batman had trained him to find her. Honed his senses, the way he tried to program tech to hone in on Batman.

It didn’t work.

Bruce had always said relying on tech was a weakness in its own way and, clearly, Batman had no weaknesses.

Except for Jason. And Dick. And Tim and Barbara and Selina and all of the people he cared about.

He was back to square one, mind cataloguing ways he could hurt Bruce and he sobbed without realising tears were building up in his throat, sick of the endless cycle of hate, guilt and confusion. He wanted it to go away. He wanted it to end. But he was afraid the only way it could end, was if he was dead.

“Oh, sweetie.” Selina sat on the bed next to him, and her hand went into his hair, brushing back locks. It felt nice. As good as when Bruce brushed his hair off his face or mindlessly played with the ends while Jason was asleep.

But it was different. Affectionate without hesitance. Loving and warm, without unease. “I’m angry at what you did. But I don’t blame you.”

Jason laughed, venom dripping from his mouth. “Why not? I’m to blame.”

“Joker’s to blame, Jason. And just because he’s dead, doesn’t mean he’s absolved. He did things to you, twisted you into something you’re not.  You might have pulled the trigger, but he loaded the gun and aimed you at Batman… I’m not saying that makes what you did okay. You need to come to terms with all of that eventually. But The Joker is toxic and can manipulate people’s minds. You can’t be mad at someone for being under the influence of something like that.”

It didn’t matter whether that was true or not. Jason was still sickened. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I wish… I wish I could go back and–”

“So do I.” Selina cut him off, and her fingers kept massaging his hair. “I realised the other night that I heard you. In Arkham.” Jason flinched. “I was doing a job. I had to lift something off Two-Face. I heard rumour about a prisoner being held by some inmates. I’m sorry that I didn’t check. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it was you.”

Jason squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn’t known that. He was glad he didn’t. Glad that no one told him she was in the Asylum because that would have given him hope and then he would have had to lose it again. “There’s nothing you could have done.”

“Yes, there was. I could have taken out Harley. I could have told Bruce.”

“Bruce was never going to come,” he said automatically.

Selina’s hands clambered along his back, head and shoulders to turn him on his side, then through his hair to push it off his face so she could see his eyes. “Bruce loves you, Jason. When he thought you died, it took Superman to stop him ripping Joker’s limbs off. I don’t think you know how many nights he came home on the brink of death because he pushed himself that hard to punish himself. Punish himself, for losing you. Not Robin. Not his partner either. But Jason, his son. If he had known you were there, it would have taken a bigger army than the one you put together to stop him, from getting to you.”

Jason swallowed. Selina’s green eyes shone with conviction. He sniffed back his tears. “He’s the world greatest detective, and he couldn’t find me?” Jason croaked. “I can’t believe that.”

“That’s funny, you know.” Jason didn’t find it funny at all, but Selina was smiling. “To save your feelings for Bruce Wayne, you need to ruin your image of Batman. When you were taken, he wasn’t Batman, no matter how hard he tried to be. He was a father who was sent a video of his son being tortured and killed. Sometimes Bruce is just a man, Jason. And like any man, losing his son broke him.” She stroked her hand to his cheek.

Jason wasn’t sure what his face looked like, but it was clear enough to Selina that he didn’t believe her. “You’re still a little Crime Alley boy who doesn’t think he’s that important, aren’t you?” He blushed at the way she spoke to him. Like a silly kid. “I know. It took me a while to realise it too. But you’re Bruce’s family, and family means a lot to him, despite how he acts. You might think you’re nothing, kid, but I promise you are everything to Bruce Wayne.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I am a whole story ahead of what I publish. I do that because it gives me time to make mistakes, and I get to think things through a bit more.
> 
> But when writing this story I'd had an issue.
> 
> In the bio I read about Arkham!Jason, it said he killed Blockbuster while locked in Arkham, which I put in originally. But then I wanted to use Tarantula as a villain because I think she's similar to Jason in many ways, plus she was Dick's protege who went horribly wrong and there were ways I could draw similarities between Bruce and Dick and... anyway, I have things way more planned out than I originally thought I would.
> 
> So I decided just to cut and paste the Dick/Tarantula/Blockbuster storyline into this but realised only after I published the list of people Jason killed ('Or any misery you choose' Chapter 4), that Jason couldn't have killed Blockbuster in Arkham if Tarantula killed him in Bludhaven. It didn't even occur to me at first because I had published in Chapter 6 of the same story that Tarantula was wanted for the murder of Mark Desmond. I realised just after I published 'Like you're giving up' Chapter 2 (when Bruce says he identified Catman's body) what I'd done because in the Arkham comics both Catman and Blockbuster's bodies that Bruce identified and that I had a continuity error. To fix it, I went and deleted Mark's name from the list of people Jason killed ('Or any misery you choose' Chapter 4) and the part where Jason admits to killing people dressed up like Batman ('Like you're giving up' Chapter 2).
> 
> BUT! I have reread Nightwing (1996) recently (last night) and now realise that Blockbuster in the story that went after Dick was Roland Desmond, Mark's brother and I sort of liked the idea of both brother's feeling responsible for a Blockbuster's death and that I could keep more of the arkham!canon while still inserting my own spin on it.
> 
> So here are the very quick changes I just made to the story.  
> \- ('Or any misery you choose' Chapter 4) Jason says Mark Desmond's name when he's reciting the list of people he's killed.  
> \- ('Or any misery you choose' Chapter 6) Bruce tells Jason Tarantula is wanted for the murder of Roland Desmond, the second Blockbuster.  
> \- ('Like you're giving up' Chapter 2) Bruce realises he identified both Thomas Blake and Mark Desmond wearing versions of his Batsuit and Jason admits that it was him who killed them.
> 
> I am sorry if this is confusing. It's why I really try to plot out stories before I write them but this one just slipped passed me and I try my hardest to keep the continuity.


	4. Shaped by Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost died today...
> 
> Well, no.
> 
> I walked for 11km (6.8 miles for my American friends) in 36-degree heat (96 degrees F...) on a bushwalk.
> 
> How do superheroes do it?

Bruce had long ago, cleared the tables and was sat on the couch sketching. He wasn’t much of an artist. He was able to draw things he had seen in real life but struggled to pull images from his imagination. But he’d been toying with an idea to return as Batman. Something far more dangerous than just a man in a Batsuit. For himself and his enemies.

He wasn’t sure how long he was sketching for when Selina’s head rested on his shoulder from behind. “Ugh. Did you and Scarecrow have a love-child?”

Bruce looked down at the drawing. A Batman with tattered wings and a masked face. It was supposed to look that way. A maudlin tribute to his recent fight, maybe. But it was what had shaped him. His greatest fears had all been laid out. Some had all come true. Some proved false. Some he had overcome. He had shaped his entire life around fear, so it made sense to take up its empty mask. “Maybe.”

“Creepy. Well, that can be one I won’t check in on.” Selina moved around the couch and sat down on the opposite end from Bruce, so they were facing each other and their legs shared the space. “Jason’s asleep. Does he do that a lot? Work himself up?”

Bruce shrugged. “Sometimes. Other times, he looks like he’s fine and then wakes up screaming. I don’t think even he knows what’s going on with him.”

“What do you think?” Selina asked, tracing her fingers up his shin. “From what you know now?”

“I think this is the first time in five years he’s paused and realised everything that’s happened. I think it’s catching up to him.”

“And why is he so cold all the time?”

Bruce shook his head. “Alfred's running more tests.”

Selina sighed, nodding her head and kept trailing her fingers back and forth on his leg. “You haven’t asked me yet.”

Bruce raised his eyebrow. “Asked you what?”

“Why I came? Why I tracked your phone and looked through estate records to find you?”

“I assumed you’d tell me eventually.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Why would I be mad?”

“You told me not to come?”

“I’m quite used to you not doing as I ask.” Bruce smiled as he said it. He wasn’t upset that Selina had come. He was maybe too preoccupied with other thoughts to let it matter. But their fast quipped conversations that either turned into arguments or jokes… Well, it was a welcome distraction from Jason’s constant extremes. Bruce folded first and rested back against the arm of the couch, nudging her hip with his toe. “Why did you come, Selina?”

She rested her hand on his ankle. “So I spoke with Harley. Went and found her after you called. She was hauled up in Panessa Studios. Nice place you had there. You know there’s an unsecured back entrance?”

“Through an airshaft in Studio B? You’re the only one who can get through.”

Those words stunned Selina into silence. Her grip loosened around his ankle, and her mouth fell into a perfect ‘o’ shape. “You trust me that much?” she whispered, eventually.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I?”

Selina blinked. Once. Twice. Then she sunk back into her side of the couch, removing her hands from him altogether and tucking them into her lap. “You could always trust me. Even when you really thought you couldn’t.”

“I know.” Bruce found his hand travelling to her ankle, that had been pressed to his thigh. His fingers could encase the joint perfectly. It wasn’t something most people knew so intimately with their on-and-off’s. But with Bruce and Selina, things had always been different. Bruce flipped her onto her back holding onto said ankle during an attack, just as often as he had flipped her onto her back during… other things. “What happened with Harley?”

Selina pursed her lips, staring at Bruce. Studying his features. Looking for something. Searching for– “You know,” Bruce said. “Harley told you about Joker.” Selina pulled her knees up, so she wasn’t touching Bruce anymore. She still didn’t say anything, waiting for Bruce to say something more, but she was on edge. “I’m not him. He’s… gone.” Bruce settled with.

“Harley said there was no cure,” Selina whispered.

Bruce raised his eyebrow. “If you really believed I was him, you would have taken Jason and run. Or never come at all. So what are you getting at?”

From her back pocket, Selina slipped out a USB stick. “I asked Harley if she had anything and she gave me this. She said she’s only giving it to you because she thinks The Joker wants it. She’s waiting for you to turn into Joker like the Church is waiting for the Resurrection of Christ. She thinks Joker set up Panessa Studios.”

“He did,” Bruce admitted. He was trying not to stare at the USB stick. Trying not to grab it. “And the car. But he’s gone.”

Selina looked doubtful. Annoyed too. But mostly, sceptical. “How?”

“The fear toxin.” Bruce hadn’t quite understood it himself, at first. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. While he was at the clinic, testing Jason’s blood, Bruce looked into his own. There was still traces of Joker’s DNA in him, but not at the same levels as before. “It overwhelmed him. Let me take over and push him down. Lock him up.”

“Lock him up?” Selina questioned.

Bruce sighed, trying to find the right words. “I can’t explain. He can’t control me. That’s all that I can say.”

Selina brought her hand up with the USB stick and held it out to Bruce. “Harley gave this to me because she thinks the video will bring out the clown in you. I’m giving this to you because I know it won’t. Bruce Wayne is stronger. Bruce Wayne will watch that video and fight for his son. No matter what Harley thinks of Joker, I know you better.”

Bruce held out his hand and Selina tucked it into his fingers. “I’m taking Jason to town tomorrow. He needs to get out. Watch it when no one else is here. Trust me. You’re going to want to be alone.”

* * *

Jason’s nightmares hadn’t been anywhere near as savage as they usually were, and Bruce had a feeling Selina’s soft voice and feather-light fingers in his hair when the whimpering began, had a lot to do with that. Bruce had been walking her up to her room when they heard Jason struggling in his dreams and, without thought or concern, Selina went inside. She had once told him that she'd never be a mother to anything other than her stray cats, and for a long while he'd believed her. But he'd seen how soft she was with Ivy when they were teenagers and how she’d turned into a Mother Lion when Garfield Lynns stole Bridget’s gun and uniform. That was when he'd begun to have her doubts about what she thought of herself.

There had always been something in her for looking after kids, and when he’d asked it about it once, she’d just shrugged. “You collect people, but I prefer collecting cats. Don’t try to analyse it, B.”

But the lack of nightmares provided by Selina’s presence meant that when Jason walked down the stairs that morning, he didn’t look nearly as wrecked as he had the day before. He still trudged and dragged his feet, but the bruises under his eyes weren’t as dark. His hair was wet and curling from a shower, and his black beard was gone, the skin beneath. “Good morning, Selina.” Jason sat beside her at the bench and even let her tousle his hair affectionately as he laid his head in his arms.

“Good morning, Jason. How are you this fine day?”

“Dandy,” he smirked, and the nostalgia almost killed Bruce. It was a game Selina and Jason had always played. Talking in cheerful tones with happy words to pretend they were normal. Selina liked to say it was mocking how ‘the other side’ lived. Ordinary people with families and real jobs. Bruce always wondered to tell them that they both had families and… well, not _real_ jobs but jobs nonetheless.

“Beardless too I see. Let me see that baby face of yours.”

He made a face as she squeezed his chin between her hand and pulled back with a grimace. “It was itchy,” he murmured, trying not to make a thing of it.

“Breakfast is almost ready.” Bruce put down a coffee in front of Jason and a second mug for Selina. His eyes fixed on Jason though. “One sugar.”

“Can you tell Bruce he’s evil for trying to control my sugar intake?” Jason asked Selina.

“I’ll get right on that.” Selina leant over and grabbed a slice of toast from the growing pile and crunched into it. “Now, I’m not usually a morning person–”

“Who is?” Bruce asked.

“Not us,” Jason replied.

“But if I _were_ I could get used to this. The daylight, the food, the promise of the _beach_ and good weather. What do you say, Jay? Let’s go swimming.”

Jason tensed but not nearly as much as when Bruce had brought up the beach. He wore a thin smile and stoles some bacon from the plate Bruce was still filling. “Nah. I’m not much of a beach-goer. Don’t like sand.”

“Well, that I can agree on. Fine. Bruce. Jason is going to take me shopping today,” Selina said, wrapping an arm over Jason’s shoulders.

Plates were being set in front of them, and Jason raised his eyebrow, humour dancing in his eyes and a smile barely able to stay off his face. He looked happy. Almost normal. Bruce hadn’t seen Jason look like that at all since they got to Mexico. He looked free. “I am, am I?”

“Yes. You are. And B, if you don’t want us to get criminal records south of the border, then you’re going to need to hand over your wallet.”

“I already have multiple criminal records south of the border,” Jason admitted.

“Who doesn’t?”

Bruce sighed and sat down, fishing his wallet from his back pocket before he did so. “ _All_ the cards. And no declaring a spending limit. Wow, B. You’re spoiling me.”

“When have you ever stuck to a spending limit?”

Selina turned to Jason. “You know, when we were fifteen, he would take me shopping, and I would make him buy the second most expensive thing in the store.” Selina grinned a decidedly wicked grin. The first time he had ever seen that grin was when Selina climbed through his window when they were children. When Selina and Bruce were reckless with their feelings and hurt each other more often than they helped. When she smiled with a tray of doughnuts between them and said, “Hit me, and I’ll let you kiss me.”

“Why not the most expensive?” Jason asked.

“She would steal that,” Bruce murmured.

Jason laughed, eyes lighting up and tilting his head back.

And how could Bruce put a spending limit on that? On the light in Jason’s eyes that was sorely missing from his life. He didn’t know how Selina brought out the happiness in him, but he was glad she came. More so, he was glad she took an interest in his sons. That she had, more than once, let Dick vent his frustration at Bruce on her couch, ruffled Jason’s hair when he turned into too much of an adult and escorted Tim home under the guise of wanting to visit Bruce. But this, with Jason, was going above and beyond. “Just don’t use the ones with my real name on it, for obvious reasons.”

Selina nodded once curtly and turned in her chair to Jason. “So now that we have the wallet and the approval from B, what do you say, Jason? Come with me?”

Jason blushed and tilted his head forward until his hair was covering his eyes. “I… I don’t know.”

“It’d be good. For you to get out a bit,” Bruce prompted. Jason hadn’t even left to buy groceries with him since the nightmares started, choosing instead to shuffle from one side of the house to another.

Jason was trying to look for an excuse. “I'm still a wanted man in Mexico.”

“Hat and sunglasses. Worked on the paparazzi every time I had to leave the manor.” Selina pecked Jason on the cheek and slipped out of her chair. “I’ll go and find some. I’m sure _Tal_ stocked up.” Bruce ignored the bitterness in his voice as she went upstairs.

When she was out of hearing distance – but probably still listening in somehow – Bruce quietly leant across the table. “You should go. You’re cooped up. Overthinking. Selina can tell if you’re being followed.”

Jason looked tinged green and pushed the plate away. He didn’t want to force him to do anything, but he needed to do something different to help him. “I can come with you if you–”

“No.” Jason lifted his eyes up from the kitchen bench and found Bruce’s. His eyes were a hazy blue-grey, still filled with exhaustion. “I’ll go. For a couple of hours. Don’t want to disappoint Selina.”

Bruce covered Jason’s hand with his own and squeezed. It was still so cold. He wanted to know why Jason was freezing all the time, and the USB stick felt like a ten-thousand-ton weight in his pocket. “I’ll still be here when you get back.”

And Jason removed his hand from beneath Bruce’s and nodded. “I know.” He continued with his breakfast quietly, and Bruce sighed. At least he was getting out of the house. Small victories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review if you have a moment, and tell me what you think / spelling /grammar/ contextual errors. I do appreciate it, thank you.


	5. The Darkest Moments of Jason Todd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: there is some graphic torture in this scene.
> 
> If you don't like it, you can skip it. Read up until 'He opened it and the video played automatically.' and then search for 'From then on, all the torture went offline' and that's the torture section. 
> 
> There's still a lot of angst.
> 
> Another disclaimer, some of the torture scenes, I took from pages of the comic. I wrote it long before I read the comic so not all of it matches up if you have read the comic.
> 
> I think I made the Joker even shittier than he already was.

After waving Selina and Jason off, Bruce went back into the house and started to clean up after breakfast. Although a part of him wanted to grab the USB stick and see whatever was on it from start to finish, another part of himself knew he wasn’t yet ready. He needed a moment to prepare himself mentally, and he used the minutes it took him to do the dishes to place guards up, to stop him from drowning while he watched the torturing of his middle child and to make sure nothing had rattled in there since he’d put The Joker away.

He took the USB stick out and plugged it into his laptop. The thumb drive popped up as _The Bird,_ and the thumbnail was of Robin's _R_. He gritted his teeth at that, already proving himself incapable to separate himself from the situation. But there were no echoes of laughter, so he didn't stop.

Still, Bruce opened the folder anyway and found videos and audio files. Some of them, he recognised the dank rooms Jason was in because they were the same from the execution video he'd watched. Could see, quite clearly, the pain etched into his face even in the thumbnails. But he found the one timed and dated the night Jason was taken. He opened it, and the video played automatically.

Jason was dangling from a meat hook, wrists bound high above his head, and his body was swinging slightly off the ground. The pain hanging would have put on his wrists and arms after hours was indescribable. A slow burn that ripped through the muscles and stretched the bones. “Well, well, well. This was certainly unexpected. But not a bad way to end the night.” Bruce felt his fist tightening as Joker moved around the camera, dragging a crowbar behind him and closer to Jason as he struggled on his rope. “So, _you’re_ Robin. You know you look so much smaller when we’re fighting. Or maybe it’s because you’re all stretched out.”

When Joker approached him, Robin lashed out. He kicked his legs out, and Joker danced back. “Batman’s gonna find me, and when he does–”

“Batman’s not going to find you,” Joker laughed. “You’re in the last place he would ever think to look.”

Jason searched his surroundings, showing the rip in his mask more to the camera. His assessing frown carefully catalogued everything piece by piece. He mustn’t have been awake for very long if he was only then taking it all in. “Arkham… We’re in the asylum.”

“That’s right Boy-oh! I guess what they say about Birdbrains ain’t so true.” He lifted the crowbar up and slammed it into Jason’s ribs. Jason shouted, not having expected the blow so suddenly. He curled in on himself, lifting his legs up and, no doubt, putting more pressure on his wrists. “Wow-wee kiddo, you’ve really made my night! You know, I always wanted a sidekick.”

“Go to hell!” Jason snapped, but another blow was delivered to his side, blowing the breath out of his lungs.

“No need, kid. We’re already here.” Joker pulled back the crowbar, but before he could land a swing, Bruce stopped the video. He closed it and opened another one, a few weeks later.

One with Zsasz.

Jason was sitting in a chair, gag around his mouth. “You know, he never wanted you.” Joker was seated at his workbench, not far from Jason, tinkering on something. One of those Jack in the Boxes that Harley loved so much.

Behind Jason was Zasz, holding a scalpel. He reached around Jason, arms wrapping around his neck almost choking him as he lowered the blade to Jason’s thigh and cut, one long thin strip. Tears were streaming down Jason’s face, but he didn’t scream. “He only wanted that first kid back,” Joker continued. Another long thin stripe was taken from his torso. “You know?” Down his back. “The other Robin.” Across his throat. “The _better_ Robin.”

All of the cuts broke the surface of the skin but only caused superficial damage. But they pulled at the most sensitive nerves and were in parts of Jason’s body where event he healing would be painful. “But he flew away like all little birdies do, and the Bats got you to replace him.” But they were increasing in number as Joker spoke. “But you were never the real deal.” Cutting Jason as sharply as Joker’s words. “I mean we all could tell Robin's skills were lacking a certain – pardon my French – _je ne sais quoi_ when you arrived on the scene.” Cut. “You know what I mean.” Cut. “You had no real talent.” _Cut._ “Like when you find a good restaurant but then they decide to franchise and just lose all the great flavour.” Jason let out a choked sob through his gag but ground his teeth so he could stop any other noise. “You’re tasteless diner food compared to Robin number uno.” Bruce couldn’t count all the cuts on Jason as The Joker stood up and walked over to Jason and Zsasz.

Zsasz stepped back, and Joker walked around Jason’s chair to inspect him like a prize dog. “Good, good. You’ve done an excellent job on him, Zsaszy. You really know how to cut someone up without taking the pretty out of them.”

Zsasz didn’t look happy as he glared at Joker. “Can I kill him now?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Zsasz, he’s not for killing?” Joker shouted angrily, snapping from calm to furious. But then he softened again and ruffled Jason’s hair. Jason coiled in on himself, trying to get away from his touch.  “Oh kiddo,” Joker moved right in front of Jason until their faces were almost touching. He reached up to the gag and pulled it down off his face. “I can promise you that by the end of this, you and I are gonna be the best of friends.”

Jason’s brow furrowed behind his damaged mask and he hocked up spit and spat it out and Joker’s face. From the camera angle, Bruce couldn’t see Joker’s reaction. But the sharp slap across his face couldn’t have meant anything good.

He walked towards the camera and spoke to Zsasz. “Keep going, Zsaszy boy. I want him to look less like him and more like… well, you.”

The next video began with a long beating.

Nothing was broken.

Joker was careful in the fact that he inflicted the most amount of pain with the least amount of permanent damage. It dragged it out. Made it just bearable enough that there was hope of getting free, but that was another part of the torture.

Joker was trying to squash out Jason’s hope.

“Batman will find me, and when he does, he’ll end you,” Jason snapped hoarsely.

“I already showed you the photos. He’s not even looking,” Joker jeered.

“He doesn’t know I’m gone,” Jason laughed, sounding slightly hysterical. “He thinks I ran away. I do that from time to time. But when he realises…”

Joker climbed onto Jason’s lap, resting his elbows on his shoulders. “What? When he realises what, Bird-boy? Is he gonna come and rescue you? After all the chaos you’ve caused him? Ignoring orders? Killing that Diplomat?” Bruce couldn’t see his face, but he heard Jason gasp.

“Oh yeah. We _all_ know about that,” Joker laughed. “That’s why you’re here. Cause you’re one of us, see? A criminal. A bad guy. The kind of people Batman locks away. Honestly, I’m just doing his job for him by bringing you here!”

Jason gasped. “Go to hell!”

“Oh kiddo, we’ve been through this already.” He punched Jason in the gut as he stood up, winding him up further.

Bruce cut the clip. He closed his eyes and went to the next one. Then the next one.

The first six months of videos were all the same. Joker tortured Jason and Jason adamantly told him that Bruce was coming to get him. He kept repeating that Batman would save him and God when he did, there would be no hole the Joker could hide in to keep him safe. Nothing Joker, Harley or any of the muscle they brought in shook that faith. He took every beating with grunts and grinding teeth, and when it was over, his belief in Bruce was unshaken, even as the blood dripped down his lips.

But at night…

Bruce found a whole series of videos that watched Jason as he slept.

That was inaccurate. Jason barely slept, but when he did, he was gripped by a nightmare. He twisted from side to side, bound up in his chair. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Something was clearly infected. He was pale, and Bruce could see the dark circles under his eyes, even with the darker bruising. “Dad!” he wailed in his sleep. He woke himself up in tears and Bruce wished he could go and help him. Turn back time and find Jason. He closed that video down and opened up the next.

Jason was sat in the chair, battered and bruised, his head lolling to the side as if he was unconscious. The camera was set on him for at least ten minutes before Joker entered the scene, pulling up a wheelchair beside him. He sat, knee to knee, giving off the softest smile the Prince of Chaos could.

It sat on his face like a disfigurement.

“Hey, kiddo. We need to have a chat,” Joker said. He reached out and made to clean up some of the blood dripping out of Jason’s nose, but only managed to smear it across his face. Jason whimpered and tried shuffling away, clearly only suffering from exhaustion, but Joker just moved closer. “I’ve got some bad news.”

“Go away,” Jason pleaded. “Just go away.”

“Don’t be like that. Come on. I thought we were friends!” Joker slung his arm around Jason’s shoulders, swinging his chair around, so they were side by side and revealing a yellow manila on his lap. “Look, I even brought you a present. Sort of. Well, more so I brought you your freedom.”

At the word freedom, Jason lifted his head up, looking desperately at Joker. “You’re gonna let me go?”

Joker laughed. “No, no, no… not freedom from _here_. Freedom from Batman! You’ve been fired, Boy Blunder!” Joker flipped open the folder and photos spilt out of it. Bruce couldn’t see what they were, but Jason looked down at them in horror.

“No,” he whispered. “No, he wouldn’t… he wouldn’t…”

“He wouldn’t what, kiddo? Replace you? Of course, he would! All Robin’s are replaceable. Like remote batteries. Or Broadway musicals stars. When they start running out of juice, you yank one out, pop another in and hey-presto, the audience is none the wiser.”

Bruce read the date of the mp4 file. He’d only taken Tim out as Robin once at that point, and it hadn’t even been because he’d wanted to. Tim had come to him with information on Jason, and there had been no time to be caught up. Tim convinced Bruce that if they didn’t leave right away, Jason would be dead within an hour and he couldn’t take him without a mask.

Jason leant forward as far as he could with his hands tied behind his back. A glisten of a tear fell between his face and onto his knees, and Joker reached his hand out and stroked his head. “Oh, there, there. Don’t cry.” The wretched sobs that Jason was emitting broke something in Bruce. He didn’t dare stop the video, choosing instead to watch as Jason cried, believing Bruce to have abandoned him.

“I was looking for you,” Bruce murmured.

After twenty minutes of tears, in which the Joker patiently waited for Jason to run out of tears, and he patted his back. “There, there, Boy-O. Uncle Joker knows what’ll make you turn that frown upside down.” Joker got out of the chair and came back with the crowbar, swinging it into Jason’s gut.

He cried out.

For six months, Jason had managed to keep himself silent during the worst of the torture, but suddenly he couldn’t. He screamed and he cried, and he begged for Joker to stop. Then he begged Zsasz to stop, and Two-Face, and Clayface and every single person that they threw at him. He begged and begged in every video, broken and alone, until one day he became silent again.

Not because he believed in Bruce again.

No.

Despite the strange angles of the camera, Bruce could see it very clearly in Jason’s eyes. Broken and alone, Jason resigned himself to his fate to live eternally as the Arkham punching bag.

Jason wasn’t screaming because he had lost all belief he was ever getting out of there.

And the torture from there became more brutal.

Harley had Jason blindfolded and gagged and hanging upside down from the meat hook. “You know I hate being here as much as you do.” She popped gum in Jason’s face, leaning down with her bat to keep her upright. “But this is gonna keep happening until you learn.”

Jason didn’t twitch, but he did swing around just enough for Bruce to see Jason’s ears covered by industrial headphones. He was in the midst of complete sensory deprivation, and Harley lifted her bat up and brought it down on his already battered body. He had no idea where the blows were coming from. The dangling ruined his sense of direction, and without his eyes, he couldn’t tell what was hitting him either. Bruce catalogued every grunt and cry to heart. He knew all of Jason’s cries and screams by the end of the video and wanted to find him to pull him into his arms as he watched Joker arrive and tell Harley it was enough.

“The Batman used you, didn’t he Birdie?” Joker said, patting Jason’s face in the next video as Harley packed up his latest torture devices. “He didn’t love you. He barely remembers you, ain’t that right?”

“Yes,” Jason agreed, his throat raw from the screams.

A broad smile spread out over Joker’s face, and he stroked Jason’s cheek like a cooing parent. “Time to test him.”

In the next video, dated only a few hours after that, Jason was strapped down to a bench with Joker by his side and Harley sitting in a corner, looking quite put out with a Jack-in-the-Box in her lap. Jason was perched upright, facing a screen made from bed sheets that Bruce had the perfect view of from the camera angle over his shoulder. He could also see a contraption on Jason’s head. It held his head steady, two long antennas sticking out from the top and disappearing below his hair. Images were playing on a reel of film, projected on the white sheet.

Random images played. Images of flowers in bloom. Cats fighting. A child eating ice cream.

And then…

Bruce.

Or, more specifically, Batman, swinging between buildings.

When that image flickered through on the 9-inch roll, Joker raised his crowbar and began to beat down on Jason at every inch. Jason was crying. Begging him to stop. Pleading that he’d give him anything. “Oh, kid, you’re gonna give me everything.” He brought the crowbar down again, and Joker laughed through Jason’s pain. Laughed and hit Jason over and over until Batman was off the film. He kept repeating this, giving Jason time to recover only when the video was something other than Batman.

Harley played _Pop Goes the Weasel_ with the jack-in-the-box, the whole time while Jason’s screams and sobs filled the room along with Joker’s laughter.

Bruce watched it, unable to pull away or un-ball his fists.

There were still more videos.

But they weren’t all violent.

In some of them, Joker did something Bruce had never thought him capable of. Gently, he helped Jason off the torture device he was strapped to and walked him towards the only table in the room. They would sit and, if Jason were too weak, The Joker would feed him like he was a child. He looked almost as if he cared. “There now. See that kid! I can be your friend.”

Bruce wanted then and there to jump through the computer screen and pull Joker’s filthy hands off his son.

Bruce knew about brainwashing. Knew how a combination of violence and care could change the way a man’s mind functioned. Every time The Joker gently fed Jason soup, Bruce felt as much hatred to the man as the times where he beat him with a crowbar. Because Jason, deprived of every comfort, leant into his grip. Searched for the gloved hand that, a second later, would slap him across the face. He accepted it – the pain and the comfort, different levels of torture. Bruce was surprised that he ever let anyone touch him again.

The last video Bruce watched, after all the ones where he slowly watched Jason be ripped down to nothing, he had seen a thousand different times. Watched in the hallucination. Played it back over and over while he sat in the cave, fist tightening.

It was after Joker broke Jason. After he convinced him, finally, that Bruce wasn’t coming, and after he was branded and broken. It was the video Joker had left at one of his crime scenes, _Robin Mark II_ written on the top in his crude handwriting, a bomb strapped to a nearby citizen and a matching one planted on the side of the box. “Either save a life or find out what happened to the bird! Your choice.” Joker laughed.

Bruce had managed to do both, setting off an EMP that corrupted the wireless connection between the bombs.

What Bruce hadn’t ever explained to Jason was that Dick and Bruce had known Jason was with Joker for quite some time, because they had received photographs. After he’d taken strips out of Jason, and after a crowbar had left him broken in a pile, a photo of Jason, unconscious with a joker card on his chest reached Batman. So when the video came, Bruce knew what was coming.

Thankfully, Dick hadn’t been around. Tim was there, but he was passed out in the kitchen after a long night and hadn’t even read what the box said. Bruce had been alone as he watched it. “Have you got something to tell the nice man, Jason,” Joker asked.

“My name is Jason Todd.” Those words, the exhaustion of them and the disparaging tone they were spoken in, were always etched in Bruce’s mind. Every day he heard them. Every time Dick, Tim or Barbara were hurt, he heard them in his head with perfect clarity.

“Who do you hate?”

“Batman,” he replied. Unflinching. Without a second of doubt.

“Excellent. Of course, you do.” Joker walked around the camera. Joined the image. Looked down the barrel with that sick grin and gloated. “Get that Batman? Kids not yours anymore. He’s _mine_. Mine, mine, mine. To do with as I wish.”

He remembered the first time he’d watched that. How his stomach had rolled over its contents, and Bruce had leant forward, closer to the screen as if he could look around Joker, to Jason and tell him it would all be okay. He was coming. He was going to find him. He was going to bring him home.

“Hey! I never asked. What’s the big secret? Who _is_ the big, bad, Bat? His name. Tell me?”

Bruce’s heart rate picked up in the present, just as it had back when he’d first seen the video. Because _Joker didn’t want to know._ Bruce knew that. He had seen Joker kill many men to keep Batman’s identity a secret and he knew what was coming. “Of course, sir. It’s–” The gunshot seemed so much louder than a typical gun. Or maybe it just was to Bruce. He could never tell. No matter how many times he had watched that video, cried out when Jason’s seat flew back, and he sprawled out on the floor, he heard the gunshot loudest. It seemed to echo and drown out everything that The Joker said next.

It took him five times to watch the video even to understand it. “Never could stand a tattletale. That’s why I like to work alone. No one to spoil the punchline. You should try it some time. After all, you’ve seen what happens when you drag your friends into this crazy little game of ours.”

From then on, all the torture went offline. Nothing else was filmed. He tried looking for more, but all he found was a video titled _Mr J._

Bruce knew what it was before he opened it and sighed, settling into the couch as he clicked it.

Harleen Quinzel sat upon the console at Panessa Studios. It seemed she’d made a home in his office while he was gone. That was the purpose of it, to begin with, he figured. The Joker subconscious prompted him to build the studios the way he did, to have a home for him and Harley once he took over Bruce’s mind. “Mistah J,” Harley laughed.

Behind her, a jack-in-the-box played _Pop Goes the Weasel_ , just like in Jason’s torture videos. “Mistah J, if you’re there come home. I need you to come home to me,” she pleaded seductively into the camera. “I got the place set up real nice, you know. Just for us.” She sounded like a school girl. Soft and childish.

And Bruce felt nothing.

There was no scratch in the pits of his head. No whispering laughter. There was silence in the deepest parts of his subconscious. Either The Joker wasn’t there, or he couldn’t hear.

He had sometimes wondered, in the dark of the night, if he had buried Joker deep enough. For the first time, he had hope that maybe he had.

In the video, Harley became angry, her mouth snarling as she grabbed a knife. “Bruce! If that’s you, give me back my Puddin'! You don’t get to keep him! Let him go!” She fell back in the chair and laughed. “Or I’m gonna make things very, _very_ bad for a certain birdie of yours.”

Bruce shut the laptop. He couldn’t handle hearing Harley threaten Jason again. Not that it mattered. They were so far in Mexico that she wasn’t ever going to be able to get to him back, so her rage was useless.

He closed his eyes and leant back on the couch, trying to still the nausea in his stomach. If it had been anyone else, he could have put it aside, but it was harder when it was personal. Harder still when it was family.

_I didn’t save him,_ Bruce thought grimly. _I let him suffer in the worst possible ways._ Bruce’s self-hatred tended to manifest at times like these when his actions caused hurt on others. But Dick, Clark, Diana, and Selina liked to tell him his self-pity was indulgent and selfish (though the last part was most Selina, Dick didn't work very hard to keep his opinions off his face). _The world’s greatest detective, couldn’t save his own son,_ a snide voice hissed in his mind.

For a second, his stomach lurched at the thought of it being The Joker. He was so sure that he’d had it under control only a minute before, but he remembered Selina’s words. _Bruce Wayne is stronger._

He realised it wasn’t The Joker at all, but a darker part of his own self-hatred and that calmed him for the moment.

_Bruce Wayne couldn’t save his son,_ he reminded himself, more sombrely. And looking at Jason every day and watching that video just made Bruce hate himself more.

_Bruce Wayne is kind of an asshole_. Selina would get a kick out of him admitting that.

He unplugged the thumb drive and pocketed it. He needed a drink and, after weeks, he still needed a plan. He ran a shaking hand through his hair. Knowing he was going to die as a masked Batman had been so much easier than trying to figure out how he was going to live as an unmasked Bruce Wayne.

He found a bottle of scotch in the kitchen and poured himself a tumbler full. He rarely indulged in such things, because he needed to be vigilant, but he needed a glass now. He leant on the kitchen bar and stared into the amber liquid glass.

He needed to get Jason help. Proper help, but not in the form of a regular therapist. Jason needed to talk about the things Bruce had long told him to keep secret. His identity, the things, as Robin and as the Arkham Knight. He needed to be able to talk freely, and he had some ideas about that already, but he knew if he asked this particular person that they would want Bruce to talk too, and more specifically about his adjustment to civilian life.

It was strange. Sometimes, over the years, he had the greatest desire to unmask himself. Like someone standing on the edge of a cliff with a longing to jump. He had thought it would make life easier for Bruce Wayne if he could admit he was Batman. But, like a lot of things, Bruce was wrong.

But if he had to do it all over again, he would still pull off the mask to save Tim. He would have pulled off the mask years ago if it meant saving Jason. Or saving Dick’s parents.

Or his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay.
> 
> I'll leave you alone for a bit...


	6. Sand Dunes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to post this until tomorrow, but I think I'm just really excited for you to read this. I really enjoy knowing you're all enjoying the story. 
> 
> For the keen observers, you may have noticed the total chapters go from out of 8 to out of 9 in the last chapter... 
> 
> That's because I wrote chapter 5 & 6 as one chapter initially but, after some deliberation, decided they were two different moods and they didn't flow like a single chapter. I ended up splitting it right before I hit 'post' on the last chapter.

Shopping with Selina wasn’t the highlight of Jason’s life. It wasn’t the worst time he’d ever had, obviously. But he wasn’t exactly thrilled with his new position as her pack mule. She bought clothing and odds and ends for the house she deemed were necessary if they were going to live there. Jason wasn’t quite sure what $600 flower vase was a necessity, but she was enjoying herself with Bruce’s card and her happiness was a nice change from Bruce and his own awkward broodiness.

Even so, the droves of people made him uncomfortable. He eyed every one of them as they went by, building up their profiles in his head without thinking about it. They all walked too close or seemed too familiar. He'd been sure at least three were following him, but he had only ever spotted them once each, and they were never to be seen again.

He felt claustrophobic. Like all the bodies were pressing in on him. But he’d pushed the nausea down and went with it, ignoring the roiling of his stomach that normally meant something bad was going to happen.

When she was done shopping for herself, she gave Jason the once over with her knowing gaze. She pulled on the collar of his shirt, tutting her tongue and mumbling something about ‘the Assassin bitch’ and her ‘uptight choices’ then dragged him into a clothing shop and bought him a few outfits. Jason’s eyes lingered on a soft red hooded jacket, and he felt the warm material between his fingers.

Selina, who had been up until that point taking to the owner of the shop, glanced over at him and took the jacket off the rack and handed it to the man. “This one too.”

Jason smirked and remembered when he’d first arrived at Wayne Manor, in ripped unwashed jeans and a t-shirt that was his fathers, how Selina had taken one look at him, grabbed Dick by the shoulder and said, “We’re taking Jason shopping.” Dick had complained the entire time. At the time he had been less than thrilled to have Jason around. He had hated Jason because Bruce had given Jason, Robin. Dick had already been working as Nightwing because Bruce had grounded him.

The Batman hadn’t expected his Golden Boy to go behind his back and create a new identity. But in return, Dick hadn’t known Bruce would give away Robin. It took a long time for Dick to come to terms with that. Longer than it took for him to care for Jason truly, which more or less happened within a week. 

Even after they decided it was better to be brothers than enemies, it still stung sometimes when Jason was flying through the Gotham skyline in red, yellow, black, and green and Dick would shoot him these looks filled with pain. At the time, Jason had thought that Dick thought Jason wasn’t good enough.

Now Jason knew better.

Being Robin was freedom. It was being an innocent, while still being a superhero. He couldn’t compare it to much except… He heard some adults sometimes complain that kids didn’t know how good they had it. How childhood seemed big and daunting at the time, but looking back it was a time where they could just be kids without consequence.

There were major consequences when he was Robin, of course. Sometimes those consequences were life or death. But when he was Robin, he always had Batman. Batman who could protect and shelter you from all that.

Dick hadn’t thought that Jason wasn’t good enough. Those looks were of longing. It was the desire to be Robin again. To feel that freedom again. To be Batman’s partner again.

He shook those thoughts out of his head. “Thanks, Selina.”

“I’m not doing it for you. I’ve made it my mission in life to see if I can dent B’s bank accounts in one shopping session. How do you think I’m doing so far?” She nudged him in the shoulder. For the first time since seeing Selina again, he realised he was taller than her. He had been at her height the last time he’d been with her, but now Jason looked down at her, and it was a little jarring.

“I um… I think you’ll need to try a little harder than that,” he laughed, trying to make the awkwardness disappear. But that was like trying to erase his J on his face without leaving a bigger scar – impossible.

She looped her hand into the crook of his elbow, and he bent it automatically to accommodate her. “How about we go somewhere quiet and chat?”

They ended up at a restaurant with a courtyard that hung over the water. The place was close to empty, during the lull between lunch and dinner, and Selina asked for a table by the edge. She ordered a cocktail for herself and a beer for Jason.

Without a crowd, Jason was infinitely more relaxed. He slouched back in the chair, nursing the beer between both hands on his stomach. When the waiter came out to take their order, Selina turned to Jason. “What do you want to eat?”

“A hotdog,” he answered truthfully.

Selina gave him a pointed look of disapproval, then turned back to the waiter. “One fish plate, one meat plate, and the ceviche to share.” She collected both the menus and handed them to the waiter. “Thank you.”

Jason played with the edge of the beer label, curling it back when the condensation broke down the glue. He was acutely aware that Selina was staring at him, but she wouldn’t push. She wasn’t a pusher. But she did expect things, and Jason found it hard to ignore her expectations. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he confessed.

Selina raised her perfect eyebrow towards her hairline. “What do you think I want you to say?”

Jason shook his head and took a swing of beer, letting the alcohol burn clean his throat. “Nothing. Something. I don’t know. Why are you even here? You’re not a therapist.”

“That much is true,” she laughed shortly and cut herself off. A grim smile spread across her face, and she tapped her fingers on the table. “I came here for you, Dick, and Tim. I care about you boys, even though we occasionally come to blows when we wear masks. And you all need Bruce. So I need to get him out of his own head. Get him back to Gotham and away from Talia’s mausoleum.”

Getting back to Gotham hadn’t even crossed Jason’s mind. But then again, the long-term hadn’t been something he was thinking about at all. “It’s not a bad place to live,” he said. “It’s quiet. Peaceful.”

“Peaceful?” Selina scoffed. “I have found a sword in almost every room, not to mention the fact my room has replicas of all of Tim’s equipment in a hidden door in the cupboard.”

Jason frowned at that. “What?”

“Oh yeah. I also found Batgirl and a junior Bat uniform in the other closets, and some of Nightwing’s gear in the one next to yours. Talia wanted to start a Batfamily to Mexico and thought she could create a mini-beachside-Gotham.” Selina rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair.

The hair on the back of Jason’s neck prickled up uncomfortably. “Have you checked my closet?” he asked.

Selina scoffed. “What would be in your closet? Talia thought you were de-” She cut herself off and looked up at Jason. His fingers were clamped around the neck of his bottle, and his eyes widened in alarm. She studied him, and her face fell. “That bitch,” she snapped. “She  _knew_  you were alive?”

Jason hadn’t spoken about it. Hadn’t thought about it. Or he had tried not to. It was hard, being in her home with Bruce. Reading Talia’s books and seeing her touches in weaponised décor all around him every day. But he hadn’t spent the entire five years he’d been gone in South America. He closed his eyes, imagining the dunes around Nanda Parbat. “It’s… complicated.”

“When did she find out?” she demanded.

Jason huffed, knowing it would all have to come out sooner or later, and telling Selina was probably going to be easier than telling Bruce. He didn’t need another reason not to trust his girlfriends. “I don’t know when Talia found out about me, but she knew about the Asylum and Joker before I ever told her. She found me a few months after I got out of the Asylum. I was in a dark place, and I was making irrational plans for revenge. They were chaotic and messy and would probably have gotten me killed, or worse, back in the Asylum.” Jason shivered at every having to go back there. “When she first found me, she offered me a place to stay in Nanda Parbat to train with the League. I refused at first because I thought she was just luring me to get back together with Bruce. But then I figured training with League would help me kill Bruce. So I went with her. Lived there for a little over a year.”

Selina snarled. “If I could bring her back from the dead and kill her again, I would. She should have told us.”

Jason shook his head. “She was trying to make me sane. She calmed me down… a lot. I wasn’t… I used to be a lot angrier than the night of The Siege. She taught me how to meditate. Taught me to read, write in Arabic and use calligraphy as therapy. Talia had me trained in secret with Lady Shiva and her student.”

He hadn’t thought about that little girl for years, and remembering made his gut twist with guilt. She was thirteen when they’d met. He was never allowed to speak in her presence. The first time he’d been told to fight her, he had refused, but then she almost killed him with her bare hands. After that, Jason didn’t let her off easy after that. “She told me how upset Bruce was that I was gone and that we could all be a family together and how happy the family would be when we returned to Gotham together. How we could run away from her father and make our own empire. I guess that’s what Mazatlán was supposed to be.”

Jason could see in her face, so hopeful and filled with wild dreams. It was when he realised Talia al Ghul was nothing more than human with wants and desires.

“She had this twisted sense of reality,” Jason said out loud, thinking of how her eyes had lit up as she talked about it. “Because I don’t even think she wanted it that badly. I think, she wanted more than anything, to want to desire a family. She loved Bruce, that was for sure, and she thought that to love him meant that she had to want normal things. So that’s all this place is. A monument to Bruce, to show him she could be normal. Also, she wanted to get away from Ra’s. But I don’t think it would have lasted very long, even if she had.”

Talia al Ghul could kill a man in a thousand different ways, but all she wanted deep down was to have someone who loved her and to run away from her father, just like every other wayward daughter with an overworked father who demanded perfection.

Back then he had thought it would have been a mercy to kill her. Then she would never have known what it was to be betrayed by Bruce. But he had no means of killing an al Ghul and wasn’t stupid enough to try. Now she was dead anyway, and she still didn’t get to live her life out with her beloved. “I left her,” Jason whispered. “I think I broke her heart. She saw me as a path to redeem herself in the eyes of Bruce. She thought if she rehabilitated me and brought me back to him, he would forgive her for all the bad she’s done. But in some ways, she made it worse. She gave me the focus and the knowledge to plan The Siege. She even gave me the idea.”

Selina stayed quiet while he spoke and he could have kept going if the food hadn’t come out. He wasn’t that hungry if he were being honest. He kept thinking of the little girl who had he beaten into submission on Lady Shiva’s command. His fists tightened around his beer and tried to remember what was going through his head at the time. Of course, she had more than proven herself and had left Jason with broken bones on more than one occasion. But she was a little kid and Jason had been a fully-grown man. Or at least, a legal adult.

He still didn’t know her name, but he remembered her vividly, like a candle in a dark room. “I’m not hungry,” he murmured, pushing the plate away.

“Yes, you are.” Selina pushed the plate back to him. “Eat. I saw you the night of The Siege, and from then to now, you’ve lost too much weight.” She gave him a look that Jason always imagined his mother would give him one day. “Let’s not talk about Talia. She was poisonous to you, and to Bruce. I hate that he got involved with the al Ghul’s.”

“If it weren’t for the al Ghul’s, there wouldn’t be a Batman,” Jason pointed out. But he took his fork and stuck it into the meat. “Bruce always said they were his teachers, whether they were good or bad.”

“They weren’t the kind of people he should've been learning off,” she huffed.

“He said you were one of his teachers too.” The comment caught Selina by surprise, and she perked up. “He always said you taught him how to steal a watch off a man’s wrist. He showed me how to do it too, and made me study you one night when he invited you to a Wayne Ball.”

Selina rolled her eyes, and clearly knew which night he was talking about. “I wondered why he didn’t say anything. I took four Wayne Directors Rolexes that night.”

“Five,” Jason corrected.

“Four. The fifth was a very good knockoff.”

Jason laughed, and the darkness of the memories fell away. Selina looked pleased with herself as she sipped her drink. In front of the beachscape, with her lipstick and hair done up, she looked every bit the movie star. “How come you and B never stayed together? When I was a kid, I mean,” Jason asked.

Selina faltered. She finished her bite of the meal and deliberately chewed it slowly and almost took longer to swallow. “I don’t know. We’re volatile. You know, both cats and bats runaway when they’re startled.”

“And nothing startles more than feelings,” Jason said.

Selina regained her composure with a smile. “Bruce and I will always love each other. But he likes to see the good in me.  I like to see the delinquent in him. We both want each other for the things we’re not.”

“It sounds like every normal relationship.” Though Jason wouldn’t really know. The closest thing he’d ever had to a normal relationship was the back, and forth he had with Donna. He pushed around his food his plate.

A sly smile spread out across her face. Selina took her drink and sipped it, but her laughter cut her off. She put down the glass and leant back in her chair. “Did Bruce ever tell you about when he lived with me?”

Jason frowned. “What? No. He lived with you?”

“We were fifteen, I think. B got it stuck in his head that he needed to learn to think like the criminals do, so came and lived with me in Crime Alley. I used to have a hideout in the old theatre over on 3rd.”

Jason grinned. “I used to crash in the attic above the theatre on 3rd.”

“Well, who do you think dragged the bed up there?”

For a moment, all the bad stuff fell away. Jason laughed as Selina told him how she and her friend Bridget convinced a window washer to lift the bed frame up through a window. How Bruce saw it and got all flustered then slept on the floor, and how Selina taught him how to lift watches just like she did.

Selina was just telling him about the time Selina, Bruce and Ivy snuck into the back of a Narrows fight bar and did shots of absinthe when Selina’s phone rang. She was still laughing about Ivy dragging Bruce up to dance when she checked the Caller ID, and her laugh faltered.

Jason’s grin died on his face the moment he saw Selina’s concern, and he tensed. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Um… Dick,” Selina said, picking up the phone. She pulled it to her ear. “Hello?” she answered. She stood up made a motion for Jason to wait before pressing her hand against her ear. “Yeah, give me a minute. There’s no reception.”

Jason relaxed but watched Selina’s back. He couldn’t help but stab the plate a little because he was jealous, though he didn't know who of. Dick for getting Selina’s instant attention or Selina for being able to talk to Dick.

He considered what Selina said earlier, about how Dick (and Tim) needed Bruce.  _He’s only here for you,_  a dark voice told him.  _You selfish asshole._

But Jason knew that was wrong too. Bruce was going to go to Mazatlán even before he’d seen Jason on the side of the road.

Selina looked over at Jason and crossed her arm over her stomach, holding her elbow as she looked away again. Her body language all pointed to something terrible going on, and the concern in her voice earlier when she had been talking about Dick (and Tim), worried him. Selina didn’t often worry about the Batboys. She cared from a distance, but the number of times she’d been running between them was cause for concern.

Dick was probably in trouble, overstretching himself in his sorrow. He tended to get consumed by his grief and that, in turn, got him in trouble. Jason remembered when his friend Terra died. For weeks he only left the Batcave to patrol, looking for the killer until he passed out on a rooftop. Bruce had made Jason sit with him in his room with instructions to make sure Dick ate, showered, and maybe played a video game or did something of a similar nature, to distract him. But Jason had known that would be useless. 

Rather than try and force Dick to act happy, Jason climbed into bed with Dick and took a nap. When they both woke up, Jason told Dick it wasn't his fault and wrapped his arms around his shoulders and waited for him to stop crying. In the meantime, Bruce managed to find Terra’s killer – Deathstroke. He’d put him away for Dick and gave him some closure and things went back to their level of normal after that.

That had been the worst. There had been other times when Dick stretched himself too thin, but that one always stuck out in his mind, because he wondered if Dick had done something similar for him. No matter what happened or what they were arguing about that week, Bruce had found a way to fix Dick’s problems.

Whatever was going on with him now was probably something Bruce could fix. Or at least knowing Bruce was alive would make it better, but Bruce was only going to come out of hiding when he was good and ready.

For the first time, Jason questioned Bruce’s decision to fake his own death.

If he had been Dick (or Tim) and Bruce had been outed and killed in one night, he wasn’t sure exactly what he’d be doing, but it wouldn’t be good. Jason was destructive at the best of times, and at the worst… Well, he brought Gotham to its knees, even if it was for a moment before The Batman made it all right again.

Dick should know Bruce was alive. Or at the very least, Alfred and Jason decided to tell Bruce that when he got home.

Selina hung up her phone and came back to the table. She slipped into her seat and forced a smile on his face.

“How is he?” Jason asked.

“He’s okay. Just bogged down with work,” Selina said airily and Jason’s gut twinge. She was lying to him, and it was written all over her face. Usually, Selina was a good liar, but something that had been said on the phone had left her flustered and upset.

“Is everything okay?”

Selina nodded her head. “Seriously. It’s all good.” Selina looked over to the waiter. “Let’s get the bill, shall we? We’ll buy some ice cream on the way home.”

“I’m not five, Selina. You don’t have to buy me ice cream,” Jason teased, trying to cheer her back up.

It worked. Her nervous demeanour broke and a real smile broke out over her face. “Who said the ice cream was for you?”

They collected their things after Selina paid the bill with Bruce’s wallet, and bought ice cream from a place up the road. She also bought an extra tub of chocolate and vanilla, so Bruce could choose what he wanted. “He’s gonna have chocolate,” Jason said as they paid. “He’ll lecture me about sugar until kingdom come, but that man loves chocolate.”

They found a gelato shop and decided to call it a day. Selina hailed a cab and Jason put in the shopping into the trunk. He sat in the backseat with Selina, and the two of them ate their ice cream in comfortable silence. Peanut butter and cookie dough for Jason, and hazelnut and coffee for Selina.

As they neared the house, Jason, scraping the bottom of his cup look over at Selina with a half-smile. “Thank you for today. It was nice.”

Selina smirked. “You know there’s going to be many more nice days, Jay.”

Jason didn’t know if he could believe her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See. Selina has every right to hate Talia.
> 
> ... I hope that didn't come out of nowhere. I tried hinting at it... When Bruce first mentions Talia in the car, Jason tenses up and won't look at him, and it's implied that it's because Jason was upset Bruce killed The Joker for her, but that's only part of it. Then when he sees the house for the first time, he thinks _Talia_ recognises all of her decorating skills, and Jason reads Arabic.
> 
>  _I_ thought I was being as subtle as a sledge hammer, to be honest.


	7. Arabian Nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought the biggest reveal in the last chapter was going to be that Talia had, had Jason and knew he was alive and said nothing to Bruce for five years...
> 
> But you all just want to know about the three-second cameo made by a little assassin girl.
> 
> I never really quite understand what's going to resonate with you all, but there you go. You might just enjoy the next part then... :)

By the time Jason and Selina had gotten home, Bruce had gotten rid of the scotch bottle and brushed as much of the alcohol away from his breath as he could before stashing the USB stick in the drawers of the study upstairs. He was sitting on the lounge with his feet up, drawing by the time they got in, and Jason was none the wiser of the horrors Bruce had witnessed.

He looked up at Jason, being used like a pack mule filled with bags. “You look like you had fun,” Bruce said.

Jason nodded. “Yeah. Your credit card didn’t though. It took a beating.”

Bruce school his features, as images of Jason, flashed through his head. “Selina has that effect on my wallet in general.”

“I didn’t _just_ buy things for myself.” Selina pinched a bag from Jason and walked it around the lounge, holding it out to Bruce. “I bought Jason some new clothes, and you, fishing gear.”

“I don’t fish,” Bruce replied, taking the bag.

“Well I figured seeing as you’ve dedicated yourself to retirement, you might as well fish.” Selina’s arms swung up to her hips and glared at him. Jason smirked and rearranged the bags in his arms. “I’m gonna take the rest of these upstairs. This seems more like a two-person argument.” He took his leave and Selina watched him go upstairs before turning her gaze back to Bruce with a concerned glare.

“The last time I went fishing, I was seven,” Bruce said, sitting up and planting his feet on the ground.

“As much as I thought that would be a fun little joke when we came in, that’s not what I want to talk about.” Selina lowered her voice and moved to sit on the hardwood coffee table in front of Bruce. “Harley phoned me.”

Bruce tensed up. After watching a video of the woman torturing his son, the very last thing he wanted to do was hear she had been in contact. “What did she want?” He must have growled, or something ominous flashed in his eyes because Selina reached out and squeezed his hand.

“To know if…” She glanced upstairs and lowered her voice. “If _Joker_ had watched the video. If he was back.”

Bruce calmed himself with a deep breath before he replied. “He’s not back.”

“That’s what I told her, but she doesn’t seem convinced.”

Bruce glared at Selina, anger seeping into his voice. “I don’t need to convince Harley of anything. Do I need to convince you?”

Selina grabbed his arms, studying his eyes for something. After a moment, she pulled back shaking her head. “No. Whatever he tried to do to you didn’t work. I believe you, Bruce.” She let go of his arms, and stood up, pacing the length of the room. “But I’m worried about her.”

Bruce was going to say she should be. Without Joker nearby, the next person Bruce could punish for what was done to Jason was Harley. He wasn’t above hitting women when they were psychopaths who had tortured his son. “She’s making sense,” Selina whispered, strumming her fingers on her chin as she faced away from Bruce.

Bruce didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

Turning on her heel, Selina looked at him again. “When Harley is acting crazy; when she’s flying off the handle and acts dumb, she’s dangerous but stoppable. It’s when she starts making sense and using that brain of hers… _That’s_ when she’s planning something big and bad, and I’m worried it has something to do with you. Or more specifically, _The Joker_.”

Bruce shook his head. He didn’t doubt Harley could be chaotic, but there was nothing she could do to drag The Joker out of him. Bruce was in control. “I only told you where I was because I needed help finding Jason. No one else knows this place exists.”

“Harley’s not stupid, Bruce. If I could track you down, she can too. Don’t underestimate her.”

“I’m not,” Bruce said. “But the Joker is hardly there anymore. The infection levels in my blood are lower than what they were before I left.”

Selina calmed, glancing nervously upstairs again. “Good,” she whispered. “Because I don’t think Jason will make it if you become his worst nightmare.”

Bruce pressed his hands over his eyes wearily. Because he knew that. It had been circling his brain since the night he collected Jason from Durango. If Jason even found about what had really been going on with Bruce that night in Gotham, his trust would be shattered, and Bruce didn’t know if there was a way back from that.  “He can never find out,” Bruce whispered.

When he removed his hand, Selina fixed him with a look of sad resignation. “Ever.”

* * *

 _Dinner was nice,_ Jason decided.

Then Selina had taken out the Chess set and began playing against Jason, but decided it was easier to beat Bruce – it wasn’t, but she tried. Jason had started to drift off on the couch when Bruce got up and nudged him. “Don’t sleep on the couch. You’ll hurt your neck. We’re both going up to bed anyway.”

Jason almost smarmily asked if it was the same bed, but thought better of it when Bruce shot him a look that said he was reading his mind, and to shut up. He got up and helped tidy the living room with Bruce – Selina disappeared to the bathroom and reappeared when all the cleaning was done with a smile. When it was over, he went upstairs with Bruce following him just behind, turning off the lights and on the alarms.

“Good night Jason,” Bruce said, heading into his room, one level above his and Selina’s room.

“Night Bruce,” Jason replied and watched his former mentor head up the stairs.

He stared after Selina’s room when Bruce had disappeared before going into his own, half wishing the two would just get together again.

Jason remembered fondly similar nights when he was a kid, watching movies with Selina and Bruce, and sometimes Dick and Alfred. As a kid, he thought that was what it must have been like to have a proper family, and he remembered how much he hated it when Selina and Bruce broke up.

He would have been thirteen when it happened. Jason had been witness to all of it.

Selina had teamed up with Harley and Ivy to steal a painting from Gotham Museum to fund their other activities. She had convinced Bruce to let Ivy and Harley off the hook because she was trying her hardest to persuade them to live a better life and was confident she was pulling Harley away from Joker. But that night, things had gone far south.

Harley hadn’t told the other girls, but she was using the distraction of the break-in to help Joker out of prison.

Fifteen guards, eleven policemen and twenty-seven innocent civilians had died that night because of Selina’s trust in Harley. But still, Selina had seen the good in her, and when Batman had tried to capture Harley and put her in prison, Catwoman helped her escape.

The fight – both verbal and physical – that had resulted between them that night on the rooftop of Gotham Museum was what had broken them up again. After three years of dating, and Jason waking up to find Selina in the manor, they were no more. The tabloids went mad trying to figure out what had happened between Gotham’s most good looking couple, but Selina went and hid so far underground, that no one of them could find her.

Knowing what Jason knew now, he couldn’t fault Bruce for having left her, and with all his hatred towards The Joker and Harley Quinn, it made Jason angry to think about Selina siding with hers. But when Jason was thirteen, it was as if his world had broken apart. He had been bitter towards Batman and colder still to Bruce, who he had blamed for all of it.

It was almost eight months later when Talia al Ghul had invited herself to a Wayne Enterprise gala, and Jason had lost it. He’d dragged Bruce aside and told him if he wanted to get back together with Selina, he couldn’t go flouncing around with the Arabic Assassin of his past. In reply, Bruce had, in no uncertain terms, told Jason it was none of his business who Bruce dated and that he and Selina were over for good.

He got ready for bed, eyeing the closet warily. He hadn’t looked in, despite what Selina had said. It was all too much. If there was a suit for him, hiding in the back of the closet, then Jason didn’t want to know about it. Much more, he didn’t want Bruce to know about.

Talia and Bruce had never had the same kind of relationship as Selina and Bruce. Jason, at thirteen, had half believed he was going to be having movie nights with the Assassin, but Talia was never invited to the house. She showed up, but Jason (and Dick when he was around) was always sent upstairs until she was politely forced to leave.

Once or twice Bruce would disappear with her for weeks at a time, but more often than not he’d dismiss her altogether and whisper about how he had children, and their relationship had to be on his terms to keep his boy’s safe from Ra’s.

When Talia told Jason of her plan to make a home with Bruce over dinner on one of the last nights he was there, Jason had reminded her of those nights. “He doesn’t even want you in the Manor,” Jason growled. “What the hell makes you think he’s gonna want to start a family with you?”

Talia looked in the distance thoughtfully, far over Jason’s shoulder into a future she conjured in her mind’s eye. “My beloved and I have a great fate ahead of us. We will lead The League of Assassins together, once he embraces his destiny.”

“Bruce doesn’t love you,” Jason snapped. “Bruce doesn’t love anyone.”

“He loves me,” Talia dismissed him with a wave of her hand as if he were a fool.

Jason settled into bed. He had brushed his teeth and washed his face, a nightly ritual he was sure he hadn’t done since living in the Manor and grabbed a book from the nightstand. He was reading an old copy of Arabian Nights. Jason had been the one to ask for Arabic lessons. The more languages he knew, the easier it was for him to organise everything he needed for The Siege.

He was reading _The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,_ and though he tried to focus on _The Second Kalandar’s Tale,_ his thoughts were consumed on Talia al Ghul and their time together in Nanda Parbat, as his eyes grew heavier and heavier.

He could see it in his dreams.

The plains of the Tibetan Plateau, dipping into a valley that hid the Assassins city. He woke up to the sound of swords being sharpened every morning. No matter how early he thought he’d managed to get up, the weapons master was always earlier. “Jason,” Talia called out from somewhere unknown.

Jason followed the sound of her voice, lifting his head from the bed. His room was surprisingly ornate for an assassin training facility, with a four-poster bed draped in sheer materials, expensive room dividers and a Moorish tile mosaic on one wall. There was no electricity, so every crevice contained glowing candles, all dripping at different lengths, though they were all out, daylight streaking through an ever-open balcony, the doors too flimsy to even be called that.

“That’s a thin sheet of wood,” he had commented once. “Isn’t that a security risk?”

“No man has ever dared try to break into The League. Except, of course, your father,” Talia said, walking him through the many halls.

“He is not my father!” Jason yelled.

His memories echoed around his old room, and he got out of bed to walk through it, touching the desk where he had studied and devised his plans against Batman. He gazed into the painting of an Arabian Prince standing proudly on his horse after saving a great city form a terrible fate, the very same one he’d stared at night after night, cursing Bruce’s name.

In his memories, nothing had changed. The room was just how it was when he’d crept out of the window and run across the plains with a gallon of water strung over his back. “Jason,” Talia called out again, and he followed it to the door.

His room, in reality, led to a common area that opened into a winding hall. But in his dreams, he stepped into the training pit with Talia and Lady Shiva. Behind Lady Shiva was a girl.

The girl.

She was Shiva’s student, and a small little thing clad in all black from nose to toe. Her hair might as well have been covered too, but the long black tresses were instead tied up on the top of her hair in a bun. She was placid, arms behind her back with her, eyes narrowed into thin eyelash lines as she studied Jason’s movements.

Talia nodded behind the young girls head. “Kill her,” she said.

Jason looked at the shape of her. Even in her blacks, she was just a little girl. “No!” he snapped. “I don’t kill kids.”

“This one isn’t a kid,” Talia said. She smirked at Lady Shiva, and she smiled back, nodding for the girl to come forward.

Without another warning or a sound, the girl lunged at Jason and punched him in the face. He went down, lifting his hands to his head to block further attacks. _I’m not going to fight a little girl!_ he thought to himself angrily, but the flurry of potentially bone breaking kicks and punches kept raining down on him. The only option he had was to fight.

He shouted and jumped up to his feet, using his size to throw the girl off balance. She flew off him, landing in a crouch and darted towards him again. Jason shouted, blocking every punch and kick and throwing in a few of his own for good measure.

He was strong, but she was quick, and she had also been training since birth for the fight. She read him like a magazine, quickly figuring out every fight strategy he had. When he feinted left, she was there to deliver a swift kick to his side. When he went to the right, she would land a punch right on his chin. The girl’s keen eyes had, over the weeks they had been fighting, studied every one of Jason’s moves and adapted to it.

When she saw her opportunity, she took it, kicking Jason in the back of the knee to bring him to the ground and hooking her arm around his neck to choke him out. If Jason moved wrong, she could use the momentum to snap his neck, and if he didn’t move at all, she would suffocate him.

“Jason! Jason, wake up!” he didn’t know where the voice had come from, but it wasn’t Talia.

The lights were already going dark around him, and he felt woozy from the oxygen loss as he clambered at the small twiggy arm to get free, but Talia still wouldn’t say anything. She wasn’t going to. Jason couldn’t breathe, and she was just going to let him die. He tried to inhale, but he couldn’t breathe, and he needed to breathe, and the oxygen just needed to open his lungs and –

“Come on, Jay. Wake up.”

He reached over his head and grabbed the girl by the back of her neck, and flipped her onto her back. She yelped, not ready for it but her cry sounded funny. Like it didn’t belong to her body, but to someone much older and more masculine.

Jason didn’t care. Angry, he climbed on top of the little girl, her body so small and fragile, and wrapped both his hands around her neck. He squeezed his fingers around her slender neck – though it didn’t feel as thin as he thought it would – and shouted like a man possessed, trying to kill her.

He was trying to kill her. “Jason, enough!” Talia shouted, but it didn’t sound like Talia. “Wake up!”

Arms came around his neck, and he shouted, blinking but somehow throwing his eyes open at the same time.

The room he was in was plunged into darkness, except for a small light coming from the door. He looked around wildly.

_Where am I?_

He was in Nanda Parbat, but the smooth white walls and carpeting didn’t look anything like any room he’d seen inside of. “You’re going to kill him!” Selina’s voice cut through the noise in his head and Jason spun his head around to see it was her on his back, yanking him unsuccessfully. His body was poised, solid as a rock, straddling something.

He looked down and saw it was Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne.

Batman.

Batman who had left him with The Joker. Who had abandoned him. Who had lied to him!

He was clawing at Jason’s arm, face purple eyes rolling into the back of his head as Jason squeezed the life out of him. Jason growled and tightened his fingers leaning further forward to put his weight on Bruce. To make it quicker. To kill him faster. _I’ll show Talia. I’ll show her I can kill anyone!_

“For God’s sake, wake up Jason!” Selina shouted, and reality came crashing around him like a bucket of water.

He gasped.

The world flew around him as The Siege, the car ride, fight club and the weeks he’d just spent in Mazatlán with Bruce all came flying back to him at once.

His hands, still tight around Bruce’s neck, let go, and he scrambled so far back from his former mentor that he fell off the bed, lying on his back and gasping.

Blood pumped in his ears, and he grabbed his chest, breathing unevenly. He could hear Selina, shaking Bruce, trying to wake him up unsuccessfully and for the first time since he started having nightmares, Jason remembered the dream.

Everything hurt. Jason grabbed his chest, trying to punch his arm through the flesh and bone to grab his heart, to stop it beating, or at least slow it down. He couldn’t draw a breath, everything coming in short and sharp.

He almost killed Bruce. He curled his body up and rested his head on his knees, trying to find a better position to breathe in. The pressure against his lungs was excruciating, but he couldn’t get anything more than a tiny little gasp.

His vision went foggy, just like in the dream, but this time he didn’t wake up.

Jason blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason has just overworked himself...


	8. Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right now, I'm twenty-four... in 15 minutes, I'll be twenty-five. I will officially no longer be in my early twenties.
> 
> Jesus. Let the quarter-life crisis begin!

It was something Bruce had never thought he’d see again. Waking up to Jason on the side of his bed, hands tightly wrapped around his own, and head rested on Bruce’s lap. He was sitting in a chair, but his body was mostly on the side of Bruce’s bed, his eyes shut and faint breathy sounds escaping his lips. 

He thought then of how much he’s changed. Not just from when he first fell asleep in Bruce’s car that night a few weeks back outside of Gotham. But from the way, he slept at eleven, with a constant grimace on his brow. Of course, some nights - like both Tim and Dick had in their time - he would end up in Bruce’s bed. Jason was the only one though who never woke Bruce up. Not on purpose.

Tim’s constant shuffling back and forth from the door to the bed, hesitating to seek out comfort was what woke Bruce up, and he would have to sit up and beckon Tim forward. They would talk, with Tim whispering his fears into the night. Things he never thought he could tell his parents but thought maybe Bruce would understand. Dick would show up over him, shaking him awake with a tiny whispered voice begging him to let him stay. Then he would refuse to tell him what had woke him up and would say to Bruce all he needed was to sleep. It took weeks for the nightmares to eat away at him before he would confess all his fears through big gulping tears.

But Jason didn’t disturb Bruce. He just showed up.

He never tried to get under Bruce’s arm or the covers. He curled up on the end of the bed like a pet and Bruce would wake up only when Jason twisted with another nightmare. He would toss over with a crease between his brow, and Bruce would sit up and find him there. Upon finding him, Bruce would collect Jason carefully in a pile of limbs and pull him under the covers with him. In reply, Jason would cling, probably as much as Dick had. He rarely ever spoke about it in the daylight. He would sometimes tell Bruce things at night - his fears, his worries, details of his life - but the next morning Bruce usually woke up to Jason trying to sneak out of his bedroom and he never mentioned climbing in the bed. No matter what Bruce did, he couldn’t get rid of Jason’s nightmares, and it was so much worse now.

There was no sign of that fear on his face. It made Bruce guilty of screwing up so bad all those years ago. For Jason. For Dick and Tim too. He always knew he wasn’t the best parent, and he was selfish, but he loved them. Jason’s hair lying flat against his forehead and Bruce reached over with his free hand and pushed it back so he could see him better.

Jason woke with a start. It took a moment to get his bearings, and his eyes roamed over Bruce, to the bandages and back to his face, as he sat up in his chair. “You’re awake.”

Bruce nodded, unable to speak. His throat was hurting and hoarse. Jason realised and leant down, grabbing a bottle of water from where he’d stashed it on the ground and handed it to Bruce. Bruce drank greedily, droplets rolling down his cheeks. He cleared his bruised throat and gently touched it.

Jason’s nightmare had been terrifying. Bruce had woken to the sounds of a guttural shouting and screaming. It wasn’t like the dreams where he roared for people to stop hurting him.

When Bruce got in the room, Jason was thrashing in his covers, and half of them were on the floor. “Jason,” Bruce had called out, and he moved to his bedside. He was aware of Selina in the doorway, but he was too busy trying to figure out how to wake Jason up to acknowledge her. He couldn’t touch him, because that would scare him, more but Jason was wrapping himself up in the sheets, and Bruce was afraid he would choke himself.

“Jason, wake up!” he shouted, trying to rouse him from his sleep. But Jason tangled himself in the sheets enough that he’d wrapped it around his throat. Bruce swore under his breath and had no choice but to lean down and untangle him. “Come on Jay. Wake up.”

He managed to untangle Jason and Jason’s eyes snapped open. He grabbed Bruce by the throat and spun him over, slamming him into the bed in one fluid motion. It was so unexpected, Bruce didn’t react for a minute, before he realised Jason’s fingers were wrapped around his throat, choking the life out of him.

It wasn’t like what happened in Metropolis.

“Jason,” he choked out, but Jason’s eyes were glazed over. He was still wrapped up in his dreams, and Jason couldn’t see him properly. Maybe he couldn’t see him at all.

Selina ran in, jumping on the bed and tried pulling Jason off, but his adrenaline and Titan DNA were working in tandem and Bruce, and Selina couldn't shove him together. “Jason, enough!” Selina shouted, yanking at him. “Wake up!”

The last thing Bruce remembered was Jason’s face, twisted up in rage and teeth grinding together. The J glistened with tear stains, and in all that anger, Bruce just wanted to reach out and pull it all away.

“How are you?” Bruce asked in the present. His vocal chords felt like razor blades.

Jason quirked an eyebrow up. All that anger was off his face, but the loneliness and heartbreak were almost just as bad. “You know, you generally punch out the guys who try and kill you, not ask them about the weather.”

“I didn’t ask you about the weather. I asked about you.” Bruce sat up on his elbows, grunting as he did so. His chest ached too and he wondered how bad it had been. Did they give him CPR?

Jason shook his head. “I’m fine, Bruce. How are you?”

Bruce nodded, but that even hurt his neck. He rubbed at it, wincing at the bruise. He couldn’t see it, but he imagined his neck looked like smashed blackberries on a white shirt. “I’ve had worse,” Bruce said honestly. Because there had been worse injuries. But it had been a long time since he had been as scared as he was when he saw Jason’s face.

Not that he was scared of Jason. Bruce was scared for him. His son was shrouded in so much darkness, and he wasn’t sure how to help him.

“It’s okay, Jason,” Bruce said, as Jason ducked his head down so Bruce couldn’t see his face anymore. “Really, it’s okay.”

“I tried killing you,” Jason rasped. “Again.”

“You were having a nightmare. You did the same thing in Metropolis, and I put you in my car and brought you here. Why would I feel any differently now?”

Jason flinched. “I forgot about that.”

“It’s doesn’t matter. I still feel the same. You were having a nightmare,” he repeated.

“About trying to kill a little kid.” He covered his mouth as if he hadn’t planned on saying that out loud. Bruce quietened, his stomach plummeting to his knees. Jason quickly wiped his face and matched Bruce’s gaze again. “I didn’t kill kids. I never would– It was just a nightmare.”

Bruce couldn’t quite believe him. There was something in the way Jason’s voice wavered that told Bruce he was lying, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was lying about and only prayed it wasn’t the murder of a child. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Jason shook his head quickly. “It’s just a dream. It was intense, and I thought I was going to die, so I grabbed the kid and… and she turned into you. In my mind, it was still three years ago. I still wanted to kill you. But it actually was you, and I couldn’t wake up.” He buried his face in his hands again. “Why am I just getting worse?” he groaned.

Bruce sat up on the bed’s edge quietly, knees pressed against Jason’s. It was the same as when he was a kid. The nightmares were eating him up, and he couldn’t stop the outpouring grief. “You’re not angry anymore,” Bruce said, resting his hand on Jason’s shoulder. When Jason shot him a look of disbelief, he corrected himself. “You’re no longer _just_ angry. It’s easy to be angry, but it’s harder to feel.”

Jason shook his head. “I’d rather just be angry.”

“No, you don’t want that.” Bruce lifted Jason’s chin up so they could look each other in the eye. “As hard as it is, you can’t pretend like the last five years never happened. Neither of us can. But, if you want to be happy again, you can’t stay angry. Take it from me.”

Jason opened his mouth to say something but his eyes went straight to Bruce’s neck, and he pulled away and stood up. “I’m gonna get some bruise cream. Your neck looks like shit.”

Bruce sighed and let him go, leaning back on the bed. It was two steps forward, one step back. Jason disappeared, and Bruce wasn’t quite sure what to say anymore.

* * *

When Jason went downstairs to find the bruise cream in one of the houses two hundred first-aid kits, he also told Selina Bruce was awake. She went upstairs to check on him, and Jason eventually headed up too because he couldn’t find the bruise cream in the living room, kitchen or downstairs bathroom kits. He went to his room and finally found it in his bedroom’s kit, along with a packet of unused razor blades underneath the bathroom sink.

He stared at them.

 _In other words kid, you’re my plan J,_ Joker’s voice rang out in his head and the sharp sting of the knife at the end of his cane, carving through his face.

Jason touched his cheek, swallowing thickly.

 _You almost killed Bruce,_ he thought to himself. _Without even trying_.

The darkest parts of him rejoiced, satisfaction blooming in his chest and he wanted to stop it. _I don’t want to kill Bruce anymore,_ he tried thinking louder, but a cackling laugh in the back of his head interrupted him.

A memory from after. Holding Joker down in the rafters over Bruce’s fight with Clayface. _I. Am. My. Own man!_

And Joker just laughed at him.

Laughed and laughed, hacking up blood into his glove.

_You’re my plan J._

Jason put the bruise cream on the sink and found himself opening the razors and breaking the heads to release the blade inside. He stood up, leaning over the bowl and stared long and hard in the mirror. The J glared at him. It meant something to him before. It was a mark he needed to stare out to take his revenge out on Bruce. On Batman.

Now it was a sign that all along he’d been nothing more than a marionette being forced to dance by The Joker.

He grabbed the blade and stretched out the skin of his cheek, holding the flat of the blade against the edge of the scar. He wasn’t going to be owned by Joker. He wasn’t going to kill anyone else for Joker. He pressed the blade into his face harder and pushed it forward, getting it under his skin. “Jason!” Selina’s voice cut through his strange panic and he gasped, dropping the blade into the sink and flying away from it.

It was as if the world rushed back into existence and he realised how crazy what he was planning to do. _Rip off my face. I was going to rip off my face._

Selina’s footfalls were reaching his door. A sliver of blood slipped down his cheek and tears were turning it pink. He swallowed and realised he had about ten seconds before she walked in and saw Jason trying to mutilate himself.

He shook his head and quickly grabbed some toilet paper to soak up as much of the blood and tears as he could while cleaning up the mess from the razor packet. _You’re an idiot, Todd,_ he growled to himself as he threw it all under the sink. _That wasn’t going to fix anything._

There was a knock on the bathroom door, and Jason rinsed his faced and looked himself over in the full wall mirror. A mix of the pressure he put on the wound and his quick healing stopped the sliver of upraised skin from bleeding. It would disappear altogether in a few hours, and hopefully no one would notice, and with that he threw the wadded up bloody tissues with the razors too.

He opened the bathroom door and frowned at Selina. “Can a man not get a moments peace?” he asked, using every bit of his energy to keep his words from shaking.

“I’m going to order some take out,” she said. “I was wondering if you wanted something particular.”

Jason shrugged, snatching the bruise cream and pushed by Selina. “I’m not that hungry.”

He tried to keep walking, but Selina grabbed his hand.

After he’d blacked out from a panic attack – the third one of his life, and hopefully the last – he’d woken up on the floor with a pillow under his head, unmoved. Selina had taken care of him and Bruce and he was quite certain the loner thief was nearing the capacity of her nurturing nature, but when she had woken up she’d eyed Jason warily before giving him a bottle of water. “You okay?” she had asked, but Jason moved straight to Bruce’s side, afraid of what he’d done.

Now she asked the same thing. “Jason? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he snapped, too quickly and too angrily to be truthful. She tugged on him, pulling Jason towards herself until they were toe to toe and she could cup his cheek. The same cheeks he’d just tried to tear apart. She fixed him with a stare that was far too motherly and made Jason want to turn and run. “Bruce is worried about you. We’re both worried about you. He still thinks he can take away your pain. I know you just have to learn to accept it.”

Jason didn’t think either of them were right. He took a step back, away from Selina and her comforting hand and held up the jar of cream. “I better go give this to him,” he said and left for Bruce’s room upstairs before Selina could say anything else.

Bruce was back in bed, a bottle of painkillers on the bedside along with his burner phone, and Jason went and handed him the cream. “Thank you, Jason.” Bruce uncapped it straight away and started rubbing it around his neck. “This should clear it up quicker.” He took some painkillers too and swallowed them painfully.

Jason stared at the ugly marks around Bruce’s neck, and must have had a face because Bruce reached out over and squeezed Jason’s hand. “I’ll be alright. Don’t worry about me.”

But Jason did. He could still feel his fingers, around Bruce’s neck. Holding his life in his hands; the way his airways cut off. He pulled his hand out of Bruce’s and stepped back. “Get some rest.” He stood up, leaning over Bruce for the moment. “I’m just going to have a shower. Get something to eat.”

Bruce was already blinking slower. “Are you going to be alright?”

Jason forced a smile on his face. “I can entertain myself for a few hours. Anyway, I got Selina.”

Bruce nodded and let his eyes fall shut, the drugs taking effect. Jason stared at him for a minute longer, eyes focusing in on the bruises on his neck. If Bruce had died Jason would have…

He didn’t know. He would have gone mad with grief. Especially if it had been at his own hand.

But the sickest thing was, he could still see. Still see himself celebrating Bruce’s death. Still see Dick and Alfred mourning. Barbara too. But at the same time, the thought sent him crumbling.

_I need to sort my shit out. Sort my head out._

Jason swallowed, staring down at the phone on the bedside. He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. But what Selina had said about Dick. What she told him about Bruce…

He flicked through the phone and saw all the contacts. He had them all saved as their middle names. John for Dick. Thaddeus for Alfred. Jackson for Timothy (which he only knew because of his slight stalker obsession with the kid). He smirked when he found Barbara. She didn’t have a middle name but BG was pretty telling. Barbara Gordon. _Batgirl_.

He closed his eyes and wondered again if it was the right thing to do. But he did it anyway.

_I’m alive. Need help. I’ll send my GPS coordinates._

He sent the text, picking one of them and sat back in the armchair. Bruce was sleeping, breathing evened out. He looked fine, other than the purple skin around his neck. But Jason kept seeing his pale face, tinged with death, overlapped with the look he gave Jason when he begged him for help.

He still couldn’t tell which he desired more.

And that scared the hell out of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't been at home all day... I'm so freaking exhausted.
> 
> I've been writing all day (at the library, it's the only way I can concentrate) but I haven't finished the next story yet... I'm a bit wary of posting anything before I've finished. I'll figure it out soon...
> 
> P.S. Please tell me grammar/spelling errors. I keep finding them after I've posted.


	9. His reply

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooh my God, ya'll are gonna hate me at the end of this...
> 
> It's still my birthday, and I edited this all last night while I was sober... I've just had a 4 hour very boozy lunch, so be thankful for that...

_It’s the only choice,_ Jason reminded himself in the morning. _You can’t keep doing this to yourself. To other people._

Jason stood in the kitchen, mindlessly stirring his coffee in the mug. He felt like he was shaking. He wasn’t sure if he was, but he felt like the first-time Dick had taken him on a trapeze.

“You can’t be a real Robin until you learn how to fly,” Dick called out.

Bruce had built Dick a gymnasium, to train in with all his acrobatic equipment. He watched from the bottom as Jason climbed up to the platform and stood there holding the bar staring at the long fall beneath him. There was foam on the bottom, but, at eleven, Jason was afraid to fall in front of Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne, who were training him to become Robin.

Of course, he had already been running around as Robin, but every time Batman needed to run across buildings to follow a bad guy, Robin had been left behind. “Well?” Dick called out from the other platform. “You coming?”

“How do I know you’ll catch me?” Jason shouted.

“You don’t,” Dick teased.

“Dick,” Bruce snapped.

Dick rolled his eyes. “I’ll catch you. Don’t worry.” It was just after Dick had decided to get over Bruce giving his Robin wings away, and the boys still argued but the animosity Dick had towards him was gone. Mostly.

There must have been doubt on his face because Dick fixed him with a more stubborn glare. “I promise, I will catch you.”

Jason remembered his whole body shaking as he stood up on that ledge. He wasn’t afraid of heights, but he liked to stay away from edges. He gripped the bar like Dick had taught him and squeezed it. “Just remember to let go when I tell you to.”

“Okay, okay,” Jason huffed.

He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. _You can do this,_ he told himself.

He jumped, eyes squeezed shut and stomach bottoming out like he was on a rollercoaster. He couldn’t help the scream that escaped his lips but when Dick shouted, “Now” he did exactly as he'd been told and let go of the bars. That was when he opened his eyes and saw Dick, flying upside down on a second bar reaching for him.

Jason reached back, and Dick grabbed his arms and Jason’s trajectory vaulted the opposite way, back to where he came from. He yelped and looked down. Bruce was smiling up at them, a proud expression on his face and Dick was above him, gripping his arms and smiling. “See. A Jaybird’s gotta fly,” Dick laughed, winking at him from above.

Jason didn’t fall then. Even though he had been shaking, and scared, he hadn’t hit the foam at all that day.

Now, Jason didn’t have Bruce’s keen eye and Dick’s strong hands making sure he didn’t hit the ground. _It’s the only choice,_ he reminded himself.

* * *

“You really shouldn’t come down,” Selina snapped.

“For the tenth time, I’m fine,” Bruce argued back.

Selina rolled her eyes. “That’s why you’re taking the steps one at a time?”

“I’ve slowed down for you. I know how you can be if you miss a couple of days training.”

“You’re painful.”

Bruce just grinned and eased himself down the stairs and into the living room. It was late in the day, but he was going stir crazy in bed when all he wanted to do was get out to show Jason he was fine.

On his part, Jason had tidied up a bit, more than either of them were used to. He’d put the piles of books they’d both left around the place back on the shelves and dusted and vacuumed. The only thing out of place was his red hooded jacket, folded but left on a shelf as if he’d forgotten it while he was working. Bruce was grateful but something about his talk with Jason the day before was bothering Bruce. He wasn’t sure what, but he was somehow more worried about him than he was before.

Jason came into the living room, showered and looking more relaxed than Bruce had seen him since… well since _before_. He was wearing a t-shirt, no sweaters or jumpers but a loose black cardigan and jeans, and was carrying a tray of food with two cups of coffee. His hair was trimmed and styled too, not completely unlike the way he had it as a kid.

On the plate were eggs benedict and bruschetta on toast. The food looked good, and he had to admit he was hungry. But it was all suspicious.

“Breakfast,” Jason said, putting the tray down on the coffee table.

“Wow, thanks, Jay,” Selina said, leaning forward and grabbing a plate.

“You didn’t have to,” Bruce added. “But thank you.”

Jason smiled sheepishly and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Well, I’ve eaten, and I’m heading out to get some shopping.”

“Shopping?” The same feeling of unease crept over him that he’d felt when Jason was talking to him when he’d first woken up. The new attitude and clothing made him even more worried.

“We’re running low on supplies. Food. Cigarettes.” He pulled an empty packet from his wallet and shook it. “I figured I’d head out and get some stuff. I’m kind of good at making fish if you want a seafood night or something?”

Selina smiled around the food she was shovelling in her mouth. “That sounds great. As long it tastes this good.”

“Thanks.” Jason blushed and cleared his throat. “Anyway, got any requests before I go?”

Bruce shook his head. “You’re not going alone. Tarantula’s men are still after you and–”

“They’re not in Mazatlán. Trust me. I used to run with them,” Jason interrupted. “The most I’ve got to be wary of are the police… I think I robbed a place in Durango. It was a bit of a blur near the end there.”

Bruce still didn’t like it, eyeing Jason’s features looking for something. It didn’t seem right. “I still don’t think you should be going out on your own.”

“I’m not a little kid, B,” Jason pointed out. “I’m just going out to buy some cigarettes. And food. I’ll be back. Anyway, going out with Selina reminded me that I’m going stir crazy. Crazier,” he added after a minute.

Bruce sighed, realising it was an argument he wasn’t going to win. “Okay. But take your phone.”

With a roll of his eyes, Jason held his hand out, and Bruce found his wallet on the side table and handed over one of his cards. “So that’s where you hid it,” Jason muttered. Selina chuckled as Jason beamed at both of them and went upstairs.

“See,” Selina said. “He had a setback, but he’s going to keep getting better.”

“Hmm,” Bruce replied, grabbing his coffee. He sipped it, and Jason came back down with a pair of keys in his hand. “Did you know we have like, three cars and five motorbikes?”

“Yes,” Bruce said, eyeing Jason. “How are you going to carry shopping on a motorbike?” Not even entertaining the idea of Jason taking a car.

“Backpack,” he said. He walked over to Selina and hugged her, kissing her cheek. “See ya, Cat.”

“Bye Pretty bird” she replied smoothly.

Bruce’s stomach twisted in knots again, watching Jason pull away and move towards him. Jason’s eyes darted to the bruising around his neck. The bruise cream had taken away a lot of the colour, but it still hurt when Bruce turned his head too far either way.

Jason smiled grimly and leant down and hugged Bruce. “I’ll be back, B,” he said.

Bruce held him back, tightening his grip and holding him close. He couldn’t remember the last time Jason had engaged him in a hug. He could remember a dozen times Jason had hugged him, but couldn’t specifically remember the last time it happened. It was a long before The Joker took him.

Jason moved his arms to let go, but Bruce didn’t let him, holding him longer just for one more moment. Jason stayed for a little longer before they both let go. Before Jason straightened up his wiped his face and the dark feeling in Bruce’s stomach intensified. “Call me,” Bruce blurted out. “When you get to the store. I haven’t tested those bikes yet.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Jason replied, turning his back to them. He was already halfway out the room. “Bye!” Then he was out the door.

Bruce stared after him, listening to the sound of the garage door opening. He got up, looking around the room. “What’s wrong?” asked Selina.

Bruce ignored her. Something was bothering him with everything that had just happened. He found himself following the trail Jason had made but shifted at the door to the stairs. He took them two at a time, ignoring the nausea he felt from the mix of painkillers and no food. Selina was hot on his heels. “What are you doing, Bruce?”

“He said he’s going to get cigarettes,” Bruce said.

Selina frowned. “And?”

_I was hungry. I didn’t want to wake you. So I went and got food._

_With your bag and helmet? You could have said you went out to buy a packet of cigarettes._

Bruce got to Jason’s room and flung open the door.

Jason’s duffle bag, the one he’d lugged from Gotham to Mazatlán was gone, and so was his helmet. Bruce walked over to the closest drawer and opened it. Clothes were missing too, and an empty first aid kit sat on the dresser.

 _No, no, no_ , his heart beat in his chest as he remembered the way Bruce had hugged Jason back in Durango when he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him again. _I was just getting you back._

“Bruce.”

He snapped his head to Selina, his body on fire and his heart aching. Selina was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding an envelope that had been nestled on the pillows with Bruce’s credit card laid on the top. He walked over and snatched it before she could fully offer it out to him.

He ripped it open and unfolded the pages even though he already knew what it was going to say.

_I love you too._

_J_

Bruce stared at the note, face flushed. He pocketed the letter and turned on his heel. “What are you doing?” Selina demanded as he stormed out of the room.

“I’m going after him,” Bruce snapped.

“Not like that, you’re not.” Selina ducked under his arm, blocking his way down the stairs. The only way he could get by was if he pushed her, and he wasn’t above throwing punches at Catwoman when she was breaking the law, but Selina was a different story. “You wait here. I’ll get him.”

“He’s my son.”

“You’re angry, and you look like you’re going to kill him.”

“I’m not going to–” Bruce cut himself off with a frustrated growl. He looked heavenward. “I’ll calm down. Can _we_ just go?”

Before either of them could say anything else, there was a sound at the front door. They both exchanged glances and bolted back downstairs. Someone was testing the doorknob, and Selina stepped aside to let Bruce get there first. He didn’t call out, just unlocked and opened the door.

A punch flew at him so fast, he almost didn’t see it, but he managed to block it at the last second, only to have a second he hadn’t anticipated land in his gut. He recovered quickly, as Selina pulled back the door further and gasped.

“You’re an asshole, Bruce,” Dick Grayson growled, holding his balled up fist at his side. “I should hit you again for what you’ve done.” Tim and Barbara were stood together, fixing him with matching looks of contempt. Bruce straightened up. In that instant, he realised what Jason had done, and explaining everything to the boys and Barbara was going to take some time. He couldn’t just leave them without explaining Jason, and he couldn’t _just **explain** ,_ Jason.

Without another option, he looked back at Selina.

“Go. Bring him back,” he ordered.

She nodded and pushed by Dick, Tim, and Barbara without a word and Bruce looked at his three protégés and stepped aside. “Come in. There’s fresh coffee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger!
> 
> I haven't done that before, have I?
> 
> Um, so look.
> 
> I have screwed up.
> 
> The next story sets up the dynamic between Dick/Tim/Bruce/Jason/Barbara... Which is fairly important. I'm trying to write in more Selina and Alfred but there way too many characters to juggle and I was rushing because I wrote myself a deadline and I kept it all up until this story (because I got over eager and posted this story early)... Anyway, I screwed up because two nights ago I read the first half of the story I had written and hated all of it, so threw it out and I am writing it again.
> 
> Now I don't like post each chapter as I write it... Because it doesn't leave me much room for mistakes. So, I'm going to do something you may all hate, but whatever.
> 
> I have been expanding some flashback I've written for this story. Plus, I had a Prologue for this whole story that I didn't end up using and, put together with the flashbacks, five or six chapters of one-shots that kind of follow the same theme.
> 
> I am going to wait a week to post the next story (to give myself some time) and if it's not finished completely, I will post the series of one-shots first. They all have to do with this 'verse, and they lead up to this story. I don't think any of them give too much away for future events, but they talk about some of the flashbacks a lot more in-depth.
> 
> One of them even has fanart.
> 
> If the story is called Something Pretty, then you know it's one-shots, and I apologise profusely.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this.
> 
> I love you all, really. Nothing makes me happier than to see your awesome reviews and the all the kudos'... I've actually been writing this story for a few months now and I was a bit wary about posting it... Then I played Arkham Knight again and thought, 'screw it'. I didn't even think anyone would read it tbh but you're all so invested and now I don't want to let you down.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Love,  
> ithoughtslashmeanthorror (Bianca)


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